


Neither Gone Nor Forgotten

by w0rdinista (Niamh_St_George)



Series: Amelle Hawke [10]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), POV Fenris (Dragon Age), POV Hawke (Dragon Age), Possession, Post-Dragon Age II Quest - Alone, Revenge, Romance, Trapped in the Fade, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/pseuds/w0rdinista
Summary: "Did you count on my pride to be so very considerable that I wouldn’t have given any thought to what I would have done had I met my demise?"Fenris and Hawke discover that even death can't stop a determined magister--only delay him.
Relationships: Fenris/Amelle Hawke, Fenris/Female Hawke
Series: Amelle Hawke [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/18604
Comments: 134
Kudos: 50





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo... right. I don't know whether to be glib ("I'm not dead!") or just pretend it hasn't been literal *years* since I last posted or updated anything. Trust me, I've noticed.
> 
> In any event, I'm not dead. And I've written a thing! This is a fic that started out as a very brief ficlet in... um... 2014? (OMG, I honestly did not think it had been that long.). Anyway! Yes! A ficlet in 2014. It was one I always wanted to expand on, and I wrote in fits and starts for a while. Then... stuff happened. Quite a lot of stuff, as it happens. And writing stopped... for... rather a long while.
> 
> However, the writing seems to be starting back up again. And I have progressed far enough with this story that I feel comfortable with the notion of posting chapters.
> 
> I have received a great deal of support and encouragement from some very lovely people, namely the ever lovely tarysande, the tireless swaps55, and the one and only loquaciousquark. If there's anyone I haven't mentioned, please forgive me: it's been six years, evidently.

It starts simply enough.Items moved from one spot to another.Innocuous items.Harmless things.

A bottle of Amelle’s favorite perfumed oil, Antivan in origin, a thrillingly guilty pleasure procured from one of the Hightown merchants—that bottle placed precariously on Fenris’ weapons rack, the tiny vial of oil sitting perfectly balanced in the very center.

An old grimoire, one of the few things she has of her father’s, slid from its shelf and balanced atop an unopened bottle of Agreggio.Strange, certainly, and enough to make Amelle wonder if Fenris perhaps has too much time on his hands these days, but other than that she thinks nothing of it.

But then the length of red silk Fenris wears around his wrist goes missing.It had been there when he’d stripped for his bath, and then… gone.Gone, and no amount of searching or swearing reveals its whereabouts.Its absence troubles him, for all Fenris tries to hide it. In the days that follow, Amelle catches him rubbing absently at his wrist, the place where he’d carried that blood-red favor all those years.He looks for it, even when he thinks she doesn’t notice, but the silk is gone without a trace.

Gone, until Amelle wakes from slumber one night, eyes flying open, mouth working soundlessly—she cannot _breathe_ , something is around her throat, tight, pulling tighter, tighter, _tighter_ and she claws at it with one hand, grasping at Fenris’ still sleeping form with the other.She has never been more thankful that he is a light sleeper; he rouses with a jolt, alert and rolling over to push up on his knees in a single fluid motion.

The light is barely enough to see by—embers dying in the hearth ease away only the narrow semi-circle of darkness closest to the hearth, but Fenris does not need to see to know something is desperately wrong.

The embers flicker and dim— _fire_ , she thinks madly, fire or ice or _something,_ but she cannot breathe, and if she cannot breathe, she cannot cast—Maker’s blood, _she can’t breathe._ Mana rises helplessly in her, spurred on by fear, but without breath it is weak, in the way a brushing touch against a door tries to be a knock.Useless sparks spit and flare and die at her fingertips as her fingers scrabble desperately at the silken knot tightening at her throat.Fenris’ hands are at her neck now, pulling at the silk, but the material does not give, will not give and her lungs feel as if they might burst.She can’t— _she can’t_ —

Cold metal pressed her neck comes next, a stinging scratch, the soft tear of silk against a sharpened blade.

And then air.Deep, gulping mouthfuls of air.She sits up—she’s cold, so cold, and her face is damp with tears.Fenris’ hands are warm on her arms as he guides her up, supports her, holds on as if he knows how close she came to—

“What happened?” he asks harshly.“What—“

And then he looks. The length of red silk has fallen in two long pieces, like twin streaks of blood against their pristine bedding.Amelle shakes her head, drawing in a long, ragged, rasping breath as she drags lightly questing fingertips one one hand across her throat. The other swipes at the dampness at her eyes.

They need light. _She_ needs light.The darkness is hiding something now, something malicious.Something deadly. 

She inhales and one jumping, unsteady breath later, the fireplace is ablaze.Another breath, and Amelle has at the very least healed herself well enough to speak.Despite this, she is trembling throughout, as if the sharpest winter chill has sunk through her skin and blood and into her bones, into the very marrow of them.She is certain she will never feel warm again.

The fire goes out, suddenly, completely, plunging the room into darkness.The moonlight beyond the window isn’t enough to permeate the gloom, but—truly angry now—Amelle breathes in again and flings a defiant arm out, sending a rippling rush of energy back to the hearth; it hits the logs and catches with a whoosh of air. There’s light again, though the flames flicker strangely, shuddering against a wind neither of them can feel.

Despite the flames and their orange glow, the room is cold, a cold the fire cannot pierce.Frost stretches in jagged, spiny spiderwebs across the windows, across her looking glass.Their breath drifts out in white eddies.

“I don’t suppose you have a theory,” she mutters, her voice hoarse and rough and wrong as she swings her legs over the side of the bed and makes her slow, cautious way to where her staff rests against the weapons rack. 

“Do you mean to say,” Fenris replies dryly, Blade of Mercy already in hand, “you _do not_ believe it to be demonic in origin?”There’s no doubt they look ridiculous in their nightclothes, armed to the teeth and ready to fight, but _something_ is in her house—whatever it is, it’s tried to kill her once, and that isn’t the sort of thing Amelle is inclined to forgive or forget.

“The thought had crossed my mind.”Her fingers close around the staff as the fire in the hearth gutters out yet again in a gust of icy air.The cold is worse now, bitter and brittle so every breath hurts; the stone floor chills Amelle’s feet through the thick rugs.

And then, creeping up through the cold, like strands of latticework, comes the _smell._

Fenris’ sharp inhale scrapes across her nerves, because Amelle knows that smell; she knows what it is, and she has only started to suspect what _this_ is. _Who_ it is.

The smell—the _stink_ —filling the room like a fog is the smell of lyrium burning.

Fury ignites deep in her, like Fenris’ markings—which are already ablaze—and Amelle breathes in, pulling at her mana and conjuring fire until it licks to life in her palm, flickering hungrily up her fingers.It is bright and hot, and it pushes back at the cold, at the _stench_ , at—

Every lantern in the room flares to life, flames burning at least six inches high, casting the room into sudden, jumping light.

The room is covered in frost—the walls, the windows, the surface of her writing desk.Thick, white hoarfrost.And in that frost, words have been scratched.The same words, over and over again, across the walls, the windows, the surface of her desk:

**HE IS STILL MINE.**


	2. Two

Morning dawns amid storms rolling in off the sea, sharp claps of thunder rattling the windows as lightning streaks across the lead-grey sky.Finally. _Finally,_ the rattling windows, the burning cold, and the bitter, acidic smell of burning lyrium fade as night dwindles and the world wakes.The weather makes little difference, for they neither of them have slept—awake and on guard as the clock ticked and chimed away, hour after hour after hour. 

Between the two of them, Fenris is more accustomed to going without sleep for long stretches of time, but he is also more accustomed to avoiding _mortal_ pursuers.He… does not know what this is.He knows what it appears to be, _who_ it appears to be, but he rejects the possibility. 

When he says as much, Hawke looks up from where she is crafting a batch of restoration potion.Practical a task as it is, Fenris knows Hawke well enough to know the act of weighing, pulverizing, and blending calms her, centers her.Herbalism requires a steady hand; there is no room for trembling, clumsy fingers or distracted measurements.They need the potions as surely as she needs to be the one to blend them. 

So Fenris watches as Hawke carefully measures out dried spindleweed on a set of scales—an ostentatious gift from a grateful admirer, which he disliked on sight; an intricately carved dragon covered in iridescent pearl scales and trimmed in gold, twined about the scale’s center pillar, wings folded against its back, amethyst eyes glinting above a fanged mouth.The craftsmanship is without peer; the scale is perfectly, flawlessly balanced, making it a valued tool in Hawke’s arsenal. Fenris still dislikes it.

“You honestly don’t think it could be Danarius?”

His answer comes without hesitation.Perhaps it comes too fast entirely.“I do not.”

The look she sends him is inscrutable, at least until she leans back in her chair and arches a wry eyebrow.“Right,” she drawls.“Because we’ve never seen the creepy, inexplicable, or downright weird before.”

He shakes his head, pacing the length of the library as rain pounds the windows.“No, Hawke.Danarius is dead. _Gone_.I held what remained of his heart in my hand.”He had seen the light leave his former master’s eyes, had felt the man’s body go slack.That there is even the slightest chance something may have remained of Danarius…

No.He refuses to accept it.It is not _possible._

Hawke says nothing; she merely looks at him, the pertness in her expression subsiding into something more melancholy.“We know the Veil is thin all over Kirkwall—torn in more than a few places, too,” she says, forming the words slowly, speaking them cautiously.“Do you mean to tell me you find it easier to believe a demon can push its way through, but not a human spirit?”

“Yes,” he says—snaps, if he is to be honest—turning on his heel and pacing the length of the library, raking one hand through his hair.“In any case, what is the difference?Something came upon us last night.Whatever it is, we must draw it out and dispatch it.”

Hawke brushes the herbs free from one of the scale’s plates into a mortar.Her expression is thoughtful as she takes up the pestle and begins to pulverize the herbs.“The difference is that if it’s a demon, we know how to deal with it.”

“And?”

“And,” she echoes with obvious patience, “if it _isn’t_ —if this _is_ Danarius, then we don’t know how to deal with it.Human… spirits aren’t exactly supposed to hang around on this side of the Veil, thin or not.I can bring someone back if their injuries can be healed, but only if their spirit hasn’t passed through the Veil. Once that’s happened… they’re gone.”She pauses to peer into the mortar, her brow furrowing in consternation.“Or they’re supposed to be.”

“Which is why it cannot be him.”

At that, Hawke sets down the pestle and looks at him, _really_ looks at him, with such scrutiny as to make him bristle further and pace in the other direction.As if he might escape her gaze.“I know, Fenris,” is all she says to his retreating back.

And though he is abundantly aware she understands better than most, understands _him_ better than most, he wheels on her.“What do you know?” he barks back, knowing this is the last person who deserves his ire right now, but his hackles are up, and they will not be laid down so easily.The words spit out with such force as surprises even him.“What can you possibly know?”

Hawke folds her hands and waits a moment before speaking.“I know you have been waiting years to be rid of him.I know your freedom hinged on his death.I know you cannot even begin to think about embracing that freedom and deciding what kind of life you want to live if there is even the slightest chance he may not be completely gone.”She goes silent for another heartbeat of time before adding, “I know there are things I can never know about what he did and what you endured, but I understand enough to know this is the last thing in the world you expected, the last thing in the world you were prepared for.”

She has stolen the winds of rage from his sails, and Fenris’ shoulders sag as he turns away again.“Yes,” he manages after a too-long pause.Because she is right.He is not such a fool as to deny that.

“But…”The chair scrapes across the floor, and the carpet muffles her footfalls as she comes up behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders.“We cannot discount the unlikely just because it’s unlikely.Yes, chances are better it’s some demon of some sort, or some incredibly creepy, incredibly fancy parlor trick cooked up by some off-his-hinges blood mage somewhere.But if I’ve learned nothing else in Kirkwall, it’s that the impossible sometimes has a maddening habit of making itself possible.So I’d prefer to eliminate the truly impossible first.Before we do anything else.”

He turns to look at Hawke. Though she has healed herself well enough there is no mark upon her throat and only lingering hoarseness in her voice, he can still see the red silk wound about her neck.The image hangs stubbornly in his memory; it’s there every time he closes his eyes, bobbing to the surface like a jagged, broken chunk of cork in a glass of wine. 

Something had nearly killed her. _Something_ knew well enough that Amelle Hawke’s mana use is entwined in her breath, and knew precisely how to render her powerless. And though—though the very last thing Fenris wants is to admit that this could even potentially be a shade of Danarius, he cannot ignore that his dead master would know—if nothing else, he would know that to inflict physical pain on Fenris, at this stage, is nothing.Fenris has experienced pain.It is a concept with which he is intimately acquainted.There is nothing that can break Fenris now—

Nothing but to inflict harm upon the woman who has helped him come to see he is something _more_ than an escaped slave, more than the sum of his damaged, broken parts.

Hawke’s exhaustion hangs in heavy shadows beneath her eyes, and a low rasp lingers beneath the timbre of her voice.But hidden in those shadows and in the pinch of her brow there is the determined set of her jaw—as determined as when they’d stood on the Wounded Coast and she shouted the words _Fenris is a free man_ to the slavers, as determined as she’d been when they’d stood on the precipice of Hadriana’s hideout.As determined as she’d been the day she’d told him she would go with him to meet his sister.

The day they’d met his former master instead.The day Fenris had killed him.

Whatever the nature of this… adversary, they will figure it out.He is suddenly, startlingly sure of that.

“Very well,” he says.“How do you propose we first eliminate the impossible?”

Her lips purse in thought and she turns back to the desk and her spindleweed.“A lot of restoration potions, for a start.You know as well as I that spirits are more active at night.We may stand a better chance against it if we sleep when we can during the day.It got the drop on us last night—I don’t want to give it that same opportunity again.”

The memory of Hawke gasping for air clawed at him, the missing silk across her neck like a gash.“Nor do I.”

Hawke reapplies the pestle to the crushed herbs, and for several long moments the only sound in the library is that of stone grinding against stone.“I have some books I can check—they may give an idea on whether this is unprecedented or not.I’m going to talk to Anders and Merrill, too—“

The look he sends her is sharp. “Do not tell them who—“

“I won’t,” she assures him.“Not unless we find something out for certain, anyway.”She stops and lets out a wide, jaw-cracking yawn. 

“You should rest.”

“I plan to,” she replies, taking up the mortar and scraping out the smooth spindleweed paste and adding it to several flasks of elfroot potion.One after another she takes the bottles in her hands, warming the liquid within, and then gently shaking it, until paste and liquid become one, turning inexplicably golden.“Once this batch is finished.”

As promised, once the restoratives are prepared, Hawke, armed with a blanket and pillow, curls up on the library’s couch.Settling on her side and pulling her blanket to her chin, within minutes she is lost to slumber, her breathing slow and even and deep.Sprawled in an armchair, a thick tome across his lap, Fenris tries not to watch her sleep—she is perfectly safe here, fewer than three steps away.He knows this.He knows, too, spirits are not particularly active during daylight hours.

But he cannot quite shake the memory of that strip of silk around her neck; Hawke had been far closer than three steps away, then.Something he had worn every day for three years—a silent declaration, a silent reminder—used against her in such a way runs his blood cold.

If Fenris is honest with himself, Fenris knows Danarius has always had an innate understanding of pain and how best to inflict it. 

The deepest injuries often were the ones that left no visible marks.


	3. Three

Anders’ suspicion at Amelle’s appearance quickly fades into a wary brand of calm.Perhaps it’s something he can see in her face; she knows she looks more than a little rough around the edges.

“You look like the Void,” he tells her, narrowing his eyes.

“No one will ever accuse you of being a smooth talker,” she says on a sigh.“Mind if I come in?”

Suspicion rankles up again, like a rug caught beneath the leg of a chair.“Is there a problem?” he asks.

There are a million and one things Amelle could say to that, and most of them would start an argument.So, for once, she keeps her contentious comments to herself and nods.“I need to talk to you.”

“What about?” Anders asks, stepping away from the door, a tacit invitation into the clinic.It’s early yet, and the space is empty. Amelle doesn’t comment when he begins tidying the clinic as she follows him in; she simply sinks down to sit on the corner of a battered crate, trying to pick a way to phrase her question that doesn’t sound completely mad.

She settles for, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Anders’ hands go perfectly still, his brow furrowing, as if he can’t decide whether she’s asking in jest or not.

“Ghosts,” he echoes, slowly.

“Yes.Ghosts,” Amelle says again.“Not—not Fade spirits or demons or dreamwalkers.Ghosts.Human spirits that… that are either trapped on this side of the Veil, or… or come through when it’s thin.”

Anders’ wariness slides sideways into suspicion again and Amelle takes a slow, deep breath, bracing herself for the inevitable argument.Coming here was a mistake; civil conversation between the two of them is roughly are common as a wyvern in Hightown—

“The Warden Commander did.”

She blinks hard, leaning forward.“I beg your—”

“Not the current commander. Eli—”He stops short, mouth pressing to a thin line.“The… Hero of Ferelden,” he finally amends, however haltingly.

Her throat is suddenly dry, and her fingers are scything into her knees.“You’re telling me,” she says slowly, so there is no misunderstanding between them, “the _queen_ believes in ghosts.”

“What I’m telling you,” Anders retorts, the astringent note in his voice impossible to ignore, “is that if I’d seen the things she’s seen, I’d probably believe in them too.”

“What… what sorts of things?” 

Anders sends Amelle a long, assessing look.“Things she couldn’t entirely explain and didn’t completely understand.Something… happened to her in the Frostback Mountains.She only spoke of it once, and even then after too much wine.Evidently she saw some manner of apparition of her father, who she knew to be dead.”

“But how?” Amelle asks, looking down at her hands.“How is it possible?”

“It isn’t,” Anders says with a shrug.“Or shouldn’t be.The sheer impossibility of it was what made her decide to believe—there were no other plausible explanations.”

“But it shouldn’t be possible,” she breaths, shaking her head.“ _Or_ plausible.”

“For once, Hawke, you and I are in complete agreement.”

#

“Oh, that’s an interesting question.”Merrill pauses halfway across her little sitting area, the steaming kettle hanging from both hands.Outside, the soaking storms that pounded Kirkwall with rain since dawn have finally rolled out to sea, leaving everything wet and smelling sharply clean.

“But do you suppose it’s… plausible?” Amelle asks.“A… human spirit that didn’t cross the Veil?”

“If you’d asked me whether it was possible, I’d have said yes, I think.”Merrill’s smile is fleeting and just a little rueful.“When you consider—”

“Most of the things we’ve seen,” Amelle finishes for her.“Yes, I’d thought that myself.”

“But plausible?” she asks, turning her expression inward.“Is it _likely?_ ”Her brow creases in thought and she tilts her head, eyes flicking upward, as if sifting through memories.Now and then Merrill’s eyes narrow, as if a useful recollection had has passed before her, but then she frowns and dismisses it—whatever it was.“I haven’t _heard_ of it.” She says, finally.She crosses the room and pours tea into Amelle’s waiting cup.“Not in any common way, anyway.”

The blend is a pleasant one, spicy and earthy—and a whole lot harder to come by since the Dalish camp moved on.Amelle takes a sip and savors it before realizing what Merrill has said.“How do you mean?”

“Well, there are always _stories_ , aren’t there?”

Amelle’s eyebrow creeps upward.“Are there?”

“I suppose that’s what you’re asking me, yes.Well.”Merrill pours her own cup and sets the kettle aside on a thickly woven trivet.“Back when the clan were in Ferelden, in the Brecillian Forest…”Here, she smiles a little, and there’s a fond, faraway quality to it.Bittersweet. “Elder Paivel told us tales.I was still young enough for stories, then.”

“What kinds of tales?”

“Oh, all kinds.He was an amazing storyteller.But there is a tale—a few, in fact—of an elven boy’s spirit who haunts ruins deep within the forest.”

Amelle leans back in the little chair, fingers wrapped around her teacup.“So what’s the story?”

“The little boy, whose mother had been killed—some said by werewolves, others said she’d been pregnant and she and the babe had both died in childbirth, while still others said she died by the hand of her jealous husband—was laid to rest in a grand tomb.The little boy, bereft, held a vigil for his mother, but so consumed was he by his grief, he refused food, drink, and rest, until he expired in front of his mother’s tomb.”

Amelle blinks, hard.“So he died, and everyone just _left_ him there?”

“It’s a legend, Hawke,” Merrill reproves, gently.“Even if it did happen, the truth of it fades with time.”

“Sorry,” comes Amelle’s hasty reply.“Please, go on.”

Merrill nods and continues.“After the boy died, Falon’Din and Dirthamen appeared to bring him into the Beyond and deliver him to his mother’s side. But the little boy refused them, for it was his Mamae he sought, and he still did not realize he was dead.Three times Falon’Din offered the little boy his hand, to guide him through the Veil, and three times he refused.”Merrill looked into her own cup, her expressive eyes unaccountably sad, even for such an old tale.“Falon’Din and Dirthamen had no choice but to leave him, and he’s wandered the tombs ever since, looking for his mother.”

“That’s… awful.”

Merrill’s answering smile is tinted with sadness.“I don’t believe ghost stories are meant to be happy.Anyway, there are other tales that say the mother crossed back through the Veil to search for her son.Maybe they found each other?”

It was a nice enough thought, but not one that left Amelle feeling terribly optimistic.“In any case, if there are legends, then maybe… maybe there’s a precedent of some sort.”

“For, what,” Merrill asked.“Ghosts?Of the living—or, well, not _living,_ but—ghosts?On this side of the Veil?”

“You have to admit,” sighed Amelle, “if such a thing could happen, it’d happen in Kirkwall.”

“I suppose that’s a fair point, given, as you said, some of the other things we’ve seen.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“What kind of…entity is it?” Merrill asks, green eyes wide with piqued curiosity, evidently forgetting this was supposed to have been a purely academic conversation.So much for that.

Even if Amelle hadn’t promised Fenris she wouldn’t tell the others there was a chance they were being haunted by a dead magister, she still isn’t sure she wants to commit to that suspicion just yet.Although, if there is any fact to Merrill’s legend, mortal beings _could_ potentially be caught on the wrong side of the Veil.The news isn’t reassuring.

“Nothing so touching as a lost boy searching for his mother, I’m afraid.”

#

“I know that look,” Varric says, leaning back in his chair.“And I’ve got to tell you, I’m starting to wish I didn’t.”

Amelle smiles, though she knows the expression is pained, and sits.“Out of curiosity, just what does this look of mine foretell?”

“Bad news, usually varying on a scale of one to eleven—eleven being _get the Void out of Kirkwall._ ”

She’s never been very good at hiding bad news—or good, for that matter, though they’ve been in somewhat short supply of good news recently.“Dare I ask where my current expression falls on this scale?”

“Right now?It’s about a thirteen.”

“Excellent,” she sighs.“And, I’m beginning to fear, accurate.”

He grins at her and when Norah sets down two pints, he pushes one her way.“Lucky for you, you’ve got me.”

She takes a long pull from the mug.“You don’t know how right you are.”

“Sure I do.Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy _hearing_ it, though.So what can I do for you this fine day, Hawke?”

Amelle is dancing perilously close to betraying Fenris with the request she’s about to make, but she trusts Varric—she trusts him not to ask too many questions, to accept when she doesn’t want to answer them, and to keep this conversation strictly to himself.

“I need a favor, but I also need for you to not ask me why.”

Varric narrows his eyes, considering.“How about this?You ask me this favor, I then ask you questions, and you decide which ones you want to answer?”

This time it’s Amelle’s turn to consider.The fire crackles gently in the hearth as she turns over Varric’s offer in her head.“All right,” she agrees after a moment.“You have a deal.”

He tips his chair back on two legs and spreads his arms.“Let’s have it then.”

“Do you think you can find out where Danarius lodged while he was in Kirkwall?”

Varric’s chair tips forward onto four legs, the resulting thump causing the ale in their mugs to ripple.“Danarius?” he echoes.“Dead Danarius?Magister about,” he puts his hand out far above his head, as if measuring height, “this evil?”

“The very same.”

Varric doesn’t just look at Amelle, he scrutinizes her; he narrows his eyes and _looks_ , scanning the planes of her face, reading her as expertly as any line of prose he’s written.“You aren’t planning on doing anything stupid, are you?”

That’s enough to make a peal of slightly unhinged laughter come bubbling forth.“Oh, believe me, I will do my very utmost to avoid doing anything stupid.”

“But nothing in the way of, say, necromancy—even though I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to bring the son of a bitch back just to kill him again.”

“Maker, no—no, Varric.I only—”She breathes in deep and lets it out again, tempering her words to leave Fenris out of them.“I need to see if anything’s been left behind.Papers, journals, letters—grimoires, if they’re there.”

“One of those things is a whole lot different from the others,” he says, carefully.“Sounds as if you’re looking for something specific.”

“I am, but I don’t know what it is yet.I’ll know it when I see it.If I see it at all.”

“Fenris know about this?”

“Not yet,” she admits.“It depends on what I find—on if there’s anything to be found.”

Varric gives a slow nod.“All right, fair enough,” he says, reaching up to scratch his chin.“I should be able to find out pretty easily if he took a room in Hightown.I’ll check my contacts; it wasn’t that long ago, so I’ll probably have an answer for you as soon as tomorrow morning—he wasn’t staying here, that much I can tell you for certain.”

“I didn’t get the impression he was the type to appreciate The Hanged Man’s unique charm.”

“So few are, Hawke,” Varric replies on a chuckle.“So few are.”

#

When Amelle returns home, she’s greeted by the sight of Fenris seated at her writing desk in the library, surrounded by books of varying thickness, all of them open.His brow creases in concentration and his eyes are red-rimmed with exhaustion, eye-strain, or some aching combination of the two.He reads silently, though his lips form the words and his eyes track his fingertip as it moves across the page.

She can only imagine how long he’s been at this.Instead of announcing herself, she lets the door close quietly.The soft click is more than adequate to jerk Fenris from his task, and when he looks up it’s to blink once, then grimace and press the heels of his hands to his burning eyes with a low groan.

“Find anything useful?” she asks, dragging a chair across the room to join him at the desk.

“Very little,” he replies, dropping his hands and moving the heavy books around until he finds the one he was looking for, the page marked with a torn piece of parchment.He opens the book and thrusts it at her.“That.It tells us little, but did seem somewhat useful.”

Moving aside the parchment bookmark, Amelle begins to read.

_A spirit sees everything as defined by will and memory, and this is why they are so very lost when they cross the Veil. In our world, imagination has no substance. Objects exist independently of how we remember them or what emotions we associate with them.Mages alone possess the power to change the world with their minds, and perhaps this forms the nature of a demon’s attraction to them—who can say?_

Amelle glances at the dissertation’s author—one Mareno, a senior enchanter of Minrathous’ Circle of Magi—and shoots Fenris a pointed look.He shrugs.

“If we are indeed dealing with Danarius, I thought it prudent to examine what others of his ilk had to say on the matter.”

“If there was a way to remain on this mortal coil, you thought maybe it might be the sort of thing they’d crow about?”

“The thought did occur to me.”He turns back to the stack of books, idly rearranging them.“And you?Did you learn anything… useful?”

“Only a legend of a lost elven child’s ghost haunting lost ruins looking for his mother.”Running a tired hand through her hair, Amelle adds, “I’d almost rather that, frankly,” before looking down again at the passage she just read.

“‘A spirit sees everything as defined by will and memory,’” she reads aloud.“Huh.You know, if this is Danarius and he is being driven by will and memory, it does make a certain type of sense he’d come for you.”Fenris glowers and she lifts one shoulder in another shrug.“I know.But it does make _sense._ ”She looks down at the passage again.The words make sense, but feel as if they’re missing the mark, either too broadly or not broadly enough, which isn’t at all helpful.“Though,” she adds softly, “I hardly think he’s behaving as if he’s _lost._ Maker’s balls, we should be so lucky.”When she looks up from the book, Fenris is wearing a particularly troubling expression.“What is it?” she asks.

“What _do_ you know of demons, Hawke?”

“Other than not to make deals with them, believe anything they have to say, converse with them any way whatsoever, or take candy from them?”

“Other than that, yes.”

“They’re manifestations of… of ideas.Pride.Sloth.Rage. Despair.”She thinks of the spirit that assists her healing powers.“But there are manifestations of virtues, too, Wisdom, Compassion—even, yes, Justice.”

“Might—if this is truly Danarius, might he be in such a process of… transformation?”

Narrowing her eyes at him, Amelle asks, “You think Danarius is hanging around on this side of the Veil… trying to become a demon?”She tips her head back, looking at the ceiling, mulling this unpleasant possibility over.After a long moment, she draws in a deep breath and lets it out.“I don’t know,” is her honest answer.“I know mages who practice ‘excessive’ amounts of blood magic—and don’t ask me to try and quantify what ‘excessive’ means—are said to be made more attractive to demons.But for purposes of—of demonic possession. If such a transformation were even possible I should think it would happen on the other side of the Veil.”

This is not the answer Fenris was hoping to hear.His frown deepens to a scowl and he leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest.“Then we are no closer to an answer or explanation.”

“Unfortunately.”She lifts her eyes up to the window, where the sky is tinged gold and orange as the sun sets over Kirkwall, throwing long beams of light through the window. 

Outside, she knows, shadows are getting longer, too.Dusk is coming, and beyond that, night, when the Veil is at its thinnest. 

“And unless he decides to _show_ himself,” she says, never pulling her gaze from the window, “we have a troubling dearth of defenses at our disposal.”

“Then we must make him show himself.”

“So we can be sure of what in all the Void we’re fighting,” she supplies.Fenris nods.

Sometimes she hates it when she’s right.


	4. Four

If indeed the spirit is Danarius at all, it does not show itself that night, or the night after that. 

But two nights are not enough to lull Fenris into complacency, and for all of his insistence that this spirit cannot belong to his dead master, this silence, this… _peace_ is, ironically, beginning to convince him otherwise.For with every hour that passes, with every tick of the clock, with every chime, Fenris’ anticipation ratchets higher.But he refuses— _refuses_ —to let himself be deceived.

And so they stay awake those first two nights, catching sleep sporadically throughout the following day when they aren’t trying to figure out how Danarius has managed the impossible; for aside from Merrill’s story, everything they’ve found, everything they’ve read all say the same thing:human spirits do not re-cross the Veil.They do not come back. 

Restoration potions get them through those long days and longer nights, but such measures cannot be depended upon indefinitely.Something will have to happen.

And on the third night, _something_ does.

Since sleep has been taken off the table—or at least during the nighttime hours—Fenris and Hawke spend this night as they have spent the previous two: sitting before the library’s hearth, Griffon sleeping between them. Hawke’s staff is always within easy reach; his Blade of Mercy, for all it is undoubtedly useless against a non-corporeal adversary, is also within reach.They do the only thing they can do: they wait.

Sometime past midnight, Griffon lifts his enormous head, ears flicking forward before pressing back against his skull. Sniffing the air a moment, he lets out a low, curious whine that turns into a deep warning growl as the library door swings slowly, slowly open, hinges creaking so loudly the sound is like claws scoring grooves into the companionable silence, scarring it.Once open, the door stops, revealing nothing but the foyer’s darkness.

The house is empty.Hawke has sent Orana, Bodhan, and the boy away. 

As they leap to their feet and arm themselves, the fire behind the grate flickers erratically, flames twisting higher and jumping as the glowing logs snap and spark, embers arcing out like so many tiny shooting stars and bouncing harmlessly on the floor before turning grey and cold.And of course the embers cool, because the room itself is thick with a sudden chill.Frost spiderwebs across the windows, stark and white.

Every breath in stabs his lungs like thousands of needles.Every breath out is a plume of steam.

A gust of wind, bitterly cold, rushes through the room, then, sending a stack of correspondence scattering from Hawke’s desk like dry leaves caught in an updraft.With that wind the door slams hard enough to shake the rafters; the hideous mask that looms above the hearth clatters.

And then all goes dark. 

Griffon’s low growl erupts in a storm of furious barks and snarls, as if the animal can sense the malevolence surrounding them.Given the prickling down Fenris’ own neck, he does not think that entirely unlikely.

In the darkness Hawke hisses a curse, and the orange glow of flame swirling around her palm pushes back the darkness.“I’d like to see you try to put _this_ out,” she says, steam issuing forth with every word.

There comes a deep rattling all around them.Hawke’s fire blazes brighter and Fenris, sword in hand, moves to her back as she turns and moves to his.And so they stand as the noise grows, filling the room, filling his ears—it sounds as if the walls might threaten to crumble down to the bedrock.In the noise, Hawke’s light goes defiantly brighter—it is true flame, too, not the heatless blue glow she favors as a harmless trick.This basks his neck and shoulders in warmth—but the heat is too great to be a comfort; it is like a fever, at once too hot and too cold all around him.

Just then, a book shoots from one of the shelves and soars across the room, passing directly through Hawke’s ball of fire and landing with a hard, flat slap against the floor, flames slowly licking across the cover and turning the pages black.Fenris grits out a curse and raises his sword scarcely in time to deflect a second book, thrown with enough force that it bounces off his blade, hitting the floor and spinning halfway across the room.Hawke swears again, stomping on the first book to smother the flames, but soon there are so many tumbling off the shelves and flying straight at them, Hawke has no choice but to let that light die and call forward a shield.They three—Fenris, Hawke, and the mabari—are in darkness once again, but books pummel the shield, making it shimmer with every impact.

Gripping his sword, useless though he knows it is, Fenris looks up and around, wildly, trying to discern from which direction the attacks are originating, but he cannot.In the dim light provided by the arcane shield, projectiles come from every angle, followed by the tinkling of broken glass and the splitting peal of upended furniture hitting an unforgiving floor.The absurdity of it rankles Fenris’ temper until a thick volume of tales—the very book Hawke had pulled from her shelves the night he arrived for the first of many lessons—hits his side of the shield with such force that the protective spell weakens a fraction.And then he realizes—

_Books._

First the silken favor, and now the skills he’d learned to pull himself up from ignorance—

“Books,” Hawke spits.“I can’t tell if this is ridiculous or infuriating.”Louder, she yells, “Is this the best you can do, Danarius?Make a mess in my library?”

“Hawke,” Fenris says, his voice low and urgent as something icy unfurls deep in his gut.“Books.”

“Yes,” she drawls, but the dry note does nothing to conceal her anger; it thrums in her voice like a pulse all its own.“I’d noticed.”

“No—”He turns his head as much as he dares, not willing to turn too far away from the chaos, lest he provide this shade of Danarius—and he is increasingly certain that is who it is—a blind spot, an opportunity to attack.“Hawke.Slaves are not permitted to read.”

Comprehension dawns on her profile as the hearth explodes into flame.Several books that had landed there are swallowed up by the blaze and in the light of those burning tomes, a thick curtain of frost creeps up the library walls.Above the blazing fireplace, the giant mask that has hung there since the day Hawke moved in gives another violent shake.The fire burns brighter, hotter than he has ever seen or felt.It is unnatural.

“Shit,” she grinds out through clenched teeth.The shield fades with a snap of pressure that pops in Fenris’ ears as Hawke flings out one hand, mana rippling around her fingers, sending a wave of heat intense enough to dissipate the frost into steam.“Maker’s blood, he’s as easy to track this time as last.”

With another great shake, the mask falls, splintering into pieces, and the grate in front of the fireplace is flung to the side.There the fire surges, logs splitting and erupting in a cascade of bright orange sparks, catching both the mask’s remains and the tumble of books around it—in particular, the very book of tales he’d noticed earlier.The book from which he’d learned to read.The book he’d sworn at and threatened to throw across the room until Hawke pointed out it would not shatter as satisfyingly as a bottle of wine would.

They had lain in front of this very hearth—he stumbling over words and sentences, and she patiently correcting him, night after night after _night,_ until he was the one reading to her, until Hawke’s eyes grew heavy with the stories he read, her head lolling warmly against his shoulder.

The red silk is already and forever sullied with violence, torn by the blade of a knife.He does not know if he will ever wear it again.He does not know if he _can._ But this—Fenris will not let anyone, Danarius’ ghost included, ruin _this_. 

_Not this._

Fenris will not let a shade from his past take anything so precious from him. 

He strides out from the safety of Hawke’s shield, instinct guiding his muscles as he brandishes his sword.It is the only weapon he has now, and it will have to suffice.

“Fenris, what in blighted blue blazes _are you doing?_ ” Hawke shouts as he grabs a blanket from a nearby chair and throws it over the burning book, smothering the flames. 

“What I must,” he replies through his teeth.

“Are you mad?” she yells.“Are you completely and entirely demented?”

“Perhaps so,” he growls in return, “but I will not give him the satisfaction to ruin in death what I would not have let him ruin in life.”

The fire still grows hotter.Paintings clatter against the walls.Furniture vibrates, thudding against the floor and walls.The sling rack next to the hearth trembles, firewood shaking loose as the wrought iron tools quake and clang against each other.

“Yes, well, in life we could see him a little easier,” she shouts over the din.

Drawing breath, Fenris opens his mouth to answer, to reply—

The noise is too much, the fire too hot, the room too—

Hawke lets out a sudden, wordless cry, hand coming up, mana pulsing bright—

_What—_

And then he feels it—the burning cold of a blade slipping between his ribs.He looks down, perplexed—it’s a letter opener, of all things.A piece Hawke is immeasurably fond of, the handle worked to resemble a hawk.Its eyes are tiny green gems, its beak and folded wings shining enamel and mother of pearl. A gift from her brother.

When Fenris pulls it free, the blade is streaked with blood.His blood.

Next to the blindingly bright fire, the iron poker begins to shake, trembling furiously— _ominously_ —against the other tools.

 _“No!”_ Hawke dives for the hearth, but the poker flies free, piercing the air as straight and true as one of Sebastian’s arrows, as a bolt shot forth from Bianca.At the last, Fenris lifts the blade of his greatsword, deflecting the poker with a mighty clang that shudders down the length of the blade to the pommel.The poker clatters to the floor, but now every sharp and broken thing in the room begins to tremble and quake.Hawke scrambles to his side, lips moving as she murmurs the incantation for her shield spell.They have only to wait until dawn—it cannot be that far off, it cannot—

The demolished mask, broken into so many long splinters of wood, trembles at his feet.

The shield shimmers into place with another pop that makes his ears hurt.

It _hurts._

_Wait._

Not his ears.

He’s stumbling back from the force—

Not of Hawke’s magic.

A long splinter of wood, as long as a man’s arm, jutting out from his gut.

The shield is gone.Gone in Hawke’s wordless howl.He looks at her and she all but snarls a vehement curse—she is angry.Furious.More enraged than he has ever seen her.Tears shine in her eyes but there is fury in the line of her jaw, in the set of her shoulders.In the sparks snapping about her fingertips.

“Burn everything to the ground,” she grits out, tipping her head back and bellowing at the ceiling.“ _Burn it,_ you son of a bitch!You aren’t taking him. _Not him_.Do you hear me, Danarius? _Do you hear me?_ As the Maker is my witness, _you are not taking him!_ ”

He falls, though he hardly registers hitting the ground.Hawke kneels by his side, pulling the piece of wood free, every inch scraping like sandpaper pulled through him. She settles both hands over the coursing wound, hands enviously steady.Red-orange flame cools to blue-white strands of light as heat and ice combine to sink into his skin and tissue and muscle, coaxing his body to knit itself back together.

Once the bleeding stops, however, the light at Hawke’s hands stutters.She sucks in a breath as if in pain or surprise, snatching both hands in close to her chest, then turns wide eyes on him.

“Fenris?” she breathes, and nothing about her tone scares him more than how quickly her anger has fled.

Every muscle in Hawke’s body spasms suddenly, the force of it flinging her to the floor.She screams, high and ragged, her body twisting upon the floor, every muscle cramping and writhing, and still she screams and screams and _screams_ , and Griffon’s frantic barking cannot drown out the sound.

And then, as suddenly as it started, Hawke goes horribly, suddenly limp, eyes rolling back in her head.

Fenris breathes her name, bringing his hands to her shoulder and shaking hard.How long until dawn?An hour?Two?Too long. _Too long._

Griffon whines, nosing his mistress’ pale hand.

Suddenly— _finally,_ for every second has been an eternity—green eyes open.Rousing, Hawke blinks and looks around, slowly pushing herself up until she’s sitting.She blinks again, as if waking from a long slumber, and stares at her hands, fingers slowly flexing.

“Hawke?” 

She stares a moment longer at her hands, transfixed.“Yes?”

It is then Fenris realizes Griffon is no longer snuffling at Hawke’s hand, forcing his massive head against her in search of rubs behind the ears or scratches beneath the chin.Instead, the massive beast has taken a step back, eyes sharp, ears forward, every muscle alert.The hackles at his neck slowly rise in a long stripe down his back.

Hawke pays the dog no heed; she only stares at her hands.Griffon takes another step back, angling himself in front of Fenris. With that tiny movement, Fenris goes cold _._

Licking his lips, he takes a shaky breath.The words take too many moments to form, and when he speaks them, they taste strange and heavy in his mouth, sound strained and unnatural to his own ears.“Are you… unwell, my love?”

She does not look at him, an incredulous eyebrow arched, and say, _My love?_

She does not laugh and ask if he’s feeling all right.

She simply looks up, and the smile she sends is wide and warm.Perfect.“I’m fine.”

No _._

_No._

And then Fenris is at his feet, sword brandished; in less time than it takes for a heart to beat, Hawke’s smile, so wide and warm and perfect, melts into something terrible and familiar and so very wrong on her face.

“Oh, that didn’t last nearly long enough,” she says, pushing to her feet with slow, languid movements.“I confess I’m disappointed.”

Fenris’ throat goes tight—too tight to speak, to _breathe._

“Hello again, my little wolf.” Hawke—no, not Hawke; it is her lips, her mouth, her voice, but not _her._ It is not _Hawke_ saying the words that break the silence he cannot speak to fill.“Did you miss me?”


	5. Five

Amelle opens her eyes.The sky is lurid purple, with jagged-edged islands floating in midair.

The Fade.She grits out a particularly vehement swear.

What is less clear, though, is how she _got_ there.She sits up, rubbing her head; although she knows she cannot have a headache in the Fade, she still aches in a way she doesn’t understand—not just her head, but all over.Especially—

White-hot agony lances through her as she pushes to her feet, the pain such that she loses her breath and falls to her knees, eyes screwed shut, one hand clutched protectively to her breastbone, certain—absolutely _certain_ her chest has been torn open, that she is nothing but rib-bones and meat and—

She pries her eyes open and looks.

But Amelle is whole.Her hands are clean, her clothes are similarly unbloodied.The pain is real, and it’s _there_ , but she is unmarked.She takes a breath.It hurts.She takes another and closes her eyes, trying to push her mind back, to remember—

Oh, and remember she does.

Her library, her _sanctuary_ , a chaotic mess of flying books and breaking glass and that mask—Maker, she’d loathed that thing from day one—finally tumbling from above the mantle and splintering into so many jagged pieces.Anger had licked beneath her skin in a flood of mana begging to be shifted to fire and pushed past her fingertips, all of it coursing over icy helplessness.

And then—and then Fenris.Bleeding.

Oh, she’d thought she knew—had been sure, in fact, that what Danarius wanted was _him._

_A spirit sees everything as defined by will and memory._

The will to repossess his slave.The memory of that hunt, of years of hunting Fenris eclipsing all else.And when she saw—that blasted ugly mask she’d been meaning to get rid of for months now—that length of wood push into him until blood flowed unchecked from the wound, pulsing past his fingers and soaking into the carpet, she’d been so _angry._

_As the Maker is my witness, you are not taking him._

And despite the chaos, despite the frost covering the windows, despite her own steaming breath, she’d healed him, reaching inside and summoning her healing spirit as she’d done so very many times before.But once the blood had stopped, once his flesh had healed, as she pulled away from that sharper, deeper, clearer power of the Fade—

Something went wrong.Hard, cruel fingers pressed against that connection, like a hand catching a closing door and shoving it open.It _pushed_. Then it pulled _._ Something pulled and pulled and _pulled_ , until she started to stretch and then tear—turning her sparse and thin and distant, until she couldn’t feel her hands, her feet, her skin.The door was open, and she was being forced through it.Ripped away from—and out of—herself.

It wasn’t Fenris Danarius had wanted at all—just a warm body. Her warm body.

Amelle takes a moment, hand pressed to her aching chest.That place inside where she’s always felt connected to the Fade now feels…torn and bruised.She draws a breath to summon her mana, but when it comes it stings, like salt-water on a wound.Flame still manifests around her fingers, but for the first time in all her life, Amelle’s magic hurts _._

She rests her fingers against her breastbone, trying to think back. Could forcing such a separation cause… injury?Even just a psychic one?

The first order of business is to figure out what Danarius did. 

The second order of business is to _undo it._

When she looks around, though, all Amelle sees is her own reflection, over and over again.Mirrors reflecting her and each other; in every direction, there she is—a hundred thousand faces in a never-ending line, all her own.She pushes to her feet and approaches one of the mirrors, pressing both hands against it; it’s smooth and hard. Unyielding. 

“Hawke?”Fenris’ voice echoes all around her, and as Amelle turns, the mirrors surrounding her start to dim and flicker, like a deck of cards Varric shuffles with his usual level of flair.She bolts forward and flings herself against the nearest one, pounding it with both fists. 

“I’m here!Fenris?Fenris, _I’m in here!_ ”

Maybe—maybe they’re both trapped; if they are, at least she isn’t alone, and they can put their heads together to figure out a way—

_“I’m right here!”_

But he does not respond.Instead, she hears… her own voice.Her own voice, but distant and distracted and… nothing like her voice at all.“Yes?”

“That’s not me,” she breathes, hesitating a moment before pounding harder at the mirror, not caring if it breaks, indeed _hoping_ it does.She shouts, pounding ever harder at the mirror. “That isn’t me!”

A long silence follows. Long enough that Amelle wonders if Fenris heard her.Long enough that she starts to _hope_ —

“Are you unwell, my love?”

Amelle goes still, suddenly, pounding fists dropping uselessly to her sides.

_My love?_

“Thank you, Fenris, for waiting for me to be _kicked out of my body_ to use an endearment like that.”

The flickering mirrors go foggy and then impossibly clear, as if Amelle could reach her hand into the mists without pressing against cold glass; two shapes come into slow focus—her hands.She knows her own hands, knows them well.The ring on her right middle finger she bought from a merchant in Hightown, as much for its enchantments as the way it glinted rosily against her skin.The ring on her left is plainer, but with much stronger enchantments, purchased from a different merchant in the Gallows, and she can still hear Fenris muttering at her shoulder—she is too reckless, too sure in her ability to hide from those who would imprison her.

The fingers flex, slowly, and her voice responds in kind—but Fenris’ reaction is not what she expects.She sees him now, through eyes that are—and are not—her own. His markings flare to brightness, the Blade of Mercy flashing in that reflected light.Fury sparks in his eyes as his lip curls, and affection stabs through her breast—but this is a pain she will gladly endure.Danarius might be in her body, but he hasn’t fooled Fenris, at least. 

She finds no small measure of comfort in that.

#

Fenris stares.

This cannot be. _This cannot be._

But for as long and hard as he stares, for as desperately as he wants to be wrong—the voice is Hawke’s, the face is Hawke’s, the body is Hawke’s, but the inflections, expressions, and mannerisms are those of his dead master.

Anger sends the blood pounding through his head, twists his fingers ever tighter around his sword’s grip, threatens to overwhelm shock, to burn it away like flame eating parchment, but _Hawke—_

Beneath that rhythm pounding through his head is a softer one in counterpoint— _fear._

“What have you done?” he asks, forcing his voice to form words out of shallow, uneven breaths.“What have you—”

Getting to her feet, the thing wearing Hawke’s face raises a dismissive hand.“Your sweetheart is… safe enough.”The smile at her lips is cruel.“For the time being.”

“Where is Hawke?” he asks— _demands_ —every word grinding out through clenched teeth. Beside him, Griffon growls, low and menacing.

“She’s… in here, so to speak,” Danarius—for this is not Hawke, could never _be Hawke_ —replies, tapping a finger to her head.“Like I told you, lad, she’s safe.For now.”The hard, sharp smile widens.“She is quite furious, though.I know I should probably have suspected as much, but things are so very different when you step into someone else’s skin.”

“Get out.”

Hawke’s laughter, always infectious, is now richer, perfectly modulated, and entirely wrong. 

“Oh, I don’t think so.You’ve no idea how much time I’ve spent trying to think of how I might get her to let me in, how many different keys I’ve tried in the lock.I’m almost ashamed it took me this long.”She reaches down and picks up the bloodied length of wood that had pierced him through, staring contemplatively at it.“When it was so obvious the whole while.”She drops it with a hollow clatter, brushing her fingers clean.“In any case, I’m corporeal again.I’m not about to give that up just because you say so.”

“I _killed_ you.”

“Yes, and that was damnably inconvenient for me.I had rather hoped our meeting would turn out differently.But it didn’t.”At Fenris’ puzzlement, Danarius goes on, stepping closer and closer until Fenris smells Hawke’s soap.“Did you think—did you truly think I hadn’t planned for every eventuality?Did you count on my pride to be so very considerable that I wouldn’t have given any thought to what I would have done had I met my demise?Did you think I didn’t already know about you and your whore?That I hadn’t heard what you’d done to my most favored, my most talented pupil?”She stands so close now, and where normally Fenris would have savored the scent of soap on Hawke’s skin, the lavender clinging to her clothes from the many tiny bags she fills with dried flowers and stows in her closet—now it nauseates him and he resists the urge to move further away from the slight, slender body and its cold, cold voice.“Did you think I of all people would underestimate you when it was I who made you?”

“You—you _knew_?”

“I didn’t know.I _planned._ ”She takes a step back and looks down at her hands.With a breath, flame surges forth and then winks out.“Mm. I must say,” Danarius murmurs, threads of perfectly controlled lightning now bouncing between her palms, “I’m pleasantly surprised.”When Fenris doesn’t say anything, she looks up, grinning.“Your Hawke is more powerful than I’d anticipated.A shame she wastes it so, but her loss is my gain.”

“No,” Fenris grits out, forcing the word out through clenched teeth.He has faced his master once and bested him.This… this is a shade of Danarius in Hawke’s body, and he can—he _will_ defeat this as well.

“I beg your pardon?”

He repeats his defiance in a word, lifting his chin.With it, his spine straightens.His shoulders move back.“You will not.”

Griffon presses against his leg, as if reminding Fenris he has an ally.

Green eyes that once smiled at him now blink in confusion.Danarius tilts her head as if she’s not quite heard Fenris correctly. “I… will not?” 

Her eyes narrow, and memory’s frigid fingertips trail down his neck.But Fenris does not lower his gaze, even though years of conditioning scream at him to do precisely that—to look away, to bow, to drop to his knees, bow his head, and beg forgiveness.

To be a slave.

_I am not a slave!_

“You know, Fenris,” Danarius says lightly, conversationally as she crosses her arms over her chest.“I must say, the novelty of this new… attitude of yours is wearing thin.So. I am going to tell you what is going to happen and what you are going to do.We leave for Minrathous tonight.And when we arrive, Amelle Hawke will be found the sole beneficiary of a magister’s riches, according to my will.And you, my dear boy, will be as you ever were.”

“No,” Fenris says, and every time he voices the word his resolve steels further.“You will not.”

“I will— _I will not_?” she echoes, and Hawke’s voice strains under the weight of Danarius’ inflections.“You— _you_ dare speak to me so?Clearly, _slave,_ you need to be reminded that it is not _you_ who tells _me_ what to do.”With that, she raises one hand lazily and flings it out, the resultant bolt of energy catching Fenris square in the chest.The force of it knocks him back, sending him careening into a chair, upending it.But he shifts his weight forward despite his momentum, despite the disordered furniture and the rug rucking up under his feet, pushing ahead and raising his blade in time to block a fireball, hot and bright as any Hawke ever conjured, the heat swallowing the blade and warming it down to the pommel.He blocks another, and another, and yet _another_ , until the heat is such that sweat beads upon his brow and slides into his eyes, stinging them.

Griffon, all coiled muscle and bared teeth, lunges. The mabari ducks a fireball, surprisingly agile for such a large dog, but then Danarius hits Griffon with a bright bolt of energy that sends him flying. The dog hits a bookcase with a high yelp, striking it hard enough to send at least a dozen books toppling to the floor, where the dog now lies, unmoving. For one awful moment Fenris fears Hawke’s dog is dead, but his side moves with shallow breaths.

Fenris’ relief is short-lived as Danarius flings another sharp blast of energy at him, which Fenris dodges at the last—the table it hits skids across the room and breaks into so much kindling when it slams into the wall. She then bends to snatch up Hawke’s abandoned staff, spinning it easily in her hands, her smile sharp and cruel as she breathes in and slams the end down hard upon the floor. The wave of mana ripples into green light, and, oh, Fenris knows this spell, knows there isn’t much time, knows he should _move—_

He has taken no more than three steps forward when that light manifests in a glyph around him, holding him perfectly still—frozen to the spot.For all he fights the paralysis, Fenris cannot move, save for furtive twitchings in his fingers.

“Simple,” Danarius murmurs, examining the staff.“A bit crude.But effective.”She comes close—closer still, standing just on the outer perimeter of the glyph’s light.“You _will_ remember your place, Fenris.I promise you that—even if I must make you forget everything else first.”That horrible, _familiar_ smile widens.“Again.”

The threat of forgetting is enough.That Hawke’s face, smile, voice—Hawke, as she should be—would be ripped from his memory, and he made to live and never remember—

_Never._

He knows what comes next, what _must_ —and the very moment the light from the glyph fades, Fenris reaches for the lyrium in his skin, and as it wakes and blazes to brightness, he thrusts one glowing hand forward inside Hawke’s chest, fingers finding her heart and gripping it with ease of instinct and practice. It beats in his hand.

Surprise registers on her features, but it is fleeting, hardening quickly to a sneer.

“Go on then, little wolf,” she says.“Squeeze.But are you sure you’ll be rid of me?I only have to find another mage to make my own.And you… well, you’d lose your sweetheart.”Fenris’ fingers falter—it is only a second, but it is enough—and Danarius steps back, away from him, away from his still-glowing hand.“Or… would you be rid of me at all?”She looks again at the staff, then lets it drop to the floor.“I confess, I don’t know.”She stoops and picks up the discarded letter opener, still streaked with his blood, cleaning it on the sleeve of her dress before holding it against her own neck. 

“No,” Fenris breathes, eyes transfixed upon the pale column of Hawke’s throat as blood beads up against the blade.

“No?” she echoes, now obviously taunting him.“You’re sure?You aren’t curious at all to see what happens?Will you be free of me, or will I remain, a tenant in your lover’s rotting corpse?A… fascinating experiment, to be sure.”

“Do not…” he begins, swallowing hard, the words already clustered in his throat.He needs only to say them.Fenris knows—he _knows_ what Danarius wants to hear.“Please—”

“Ah, that’s better already.”The letter opener is tossed carelessly aside, clanging upon the hearthstones.

“Please.” He lets his sword drop to the floor, bowing his head and keeping his hands still by his sides.“Please, do not… harm Hawke.”

Danarius chuckles and steps closer.“Oh, she doesn’t like that.Not at all.I, however, do.”

Frowning, he stares into her face, searching for a falsehood.“She can… hear this?”

There is confidence in her expression.Pride.Satisfaction.But no hint of a lie.“Every word.I’d had no idea she’d be so very delicious to torment.Imagine my delight.”

Closing his eyes, Fenris imagines Hawke— _his_ Hawke, with her smiles and her patience and her pert retorts.No, she would not like what he is about to say; he only hopes she understands why he’s saying it at all.

“Very… very well,” he manages, keeping his eyes on the floor.“I will… obey.”

“I had a feeling you’d see it my way.”Moving close enough to rest the tips of her fingers beneath his chin, Danarius strokes the twin lines of lyrium there, then breathes a silky chuckle.“Your light o’ love is truly raising a fuss.It’s very nearly touching.Such language, though.” She clucks her tongue in disapproval.“Definitely salty.” 

Fenris lifts his eyes to hers, tries to find some trace, some glimmer of Amelle Hawke in those green irises.He finds none.That alone makes what he is about to do easier.“If you can hear me, Hawke—I am sorry.Forgive me.”

He knows how quickly mages can call their mana, the speed with which they can twist it to a spell.A breath.A heartbeat.Less time than that.There is no time to think, no time to deliberate, no time to _guess_. 

There is only time to act.

Hawke’s head snaps back, her jaw cracking against his fist as Fenris puts as much force as he dares behind the punch.She tumbles to the floor, limp and silent, and Fenris scoops her slender form into his arms and prays as he’s never prayed before that Anders is in his clinic.

And that Danarius does not wake before Fenris gets there.


	6. Six

Everything goes silent as the mirror fizzles to darkness before settling once again to its quiet reflective surface.

Hands fisted by her sides, Amelle steps away from the mirror.There’s nothing for it.She needs to get out of here.She needs to get out of here and get Danarius _out of her body_ before he—

She doesn’t want to think about what else he might do in her skin.Doesn’t want to think about what he _could_ do. She already knows what he plans to do, and that is enough. More than enough.

“Okay,” she announces aloud, pacing a small circle, pressing her hand to her forehead. “Okay. This isn’t the worst scrape you’ve been in.” She completes three similar circles before she speaks again. “And the fact that you can’t think of a worse one right now is neither here nor there. Danarius is in your body and you are in the Fade.” She stops, then, and looks up at the sky.Definitely the Fade, but a different construct than she’s ever seen before. _Why all the mirrors?_

After a brief examination, Amelle discovers that the mirrored room hides mirrored corridors short and long, all of them branching off from the center, like a spider’s web.

“Ostensibly mazes have a beginning and an ending,” she murmurs, walking the room’s perimeter, peering down each corridor. “I just have to pick a direction and… hope for the best.”

As strategies go, it isn’t her finest.

But she is a mage and this is the Fade. She isn’t powerless here.

Tipping her head back and closing her eyes against the Fade’s purple sky, Amelle wills herself into her armor; there is a pouch of pebbles hooked at her belt and a staff upon her back.She is still keenly aware of the sore spot within, where her connection to Compassion should be, but her mana obeys as well as it ought in the Fade. And she is armed and armored. There is some reassurance in that.

What provides no reassurance is the certainty that she cannot hesitate; time passes strangely in the Fade, and it is not a place meant for extended visits. She must return, she must fight back however she can, so she chooses a passage at random, exploring its twists and turns, dropping pebbles behind her. It is endless, maddening work, but the only thing she can do at the moment.

The first path she chooses leads her back to where she began, as do the second, third, and fourth attempts. The fifth, however, offers a twisting route that takes her further away from the circular room. She drops pebbles and is reassured the longer she goes without crossing back over an earlier path. It isn’t much, but it is progress. Amelle continues in this fashion until, halfway down a sharply jutting path, one of the mirrors vibrates with a dull thump.Curious, she lifts a hand to the glass, jerking back when it reverberates again—this time Amelle is certain someone or some _thing_ has struck a blow from the other side.

Whatever it is, it’s trying to force its way through.

The mirror cracks suddenly and Amelle takes several more steps back, freeing her stave as she does.The mirror cracks, turning one reflection into two, three, four, five and more as the splintering pattern stretches across the mirror’s surface.Then the mirror bows outward, cracks and fault lines extending with every blow. 

Amelle readies her staff as she summons her mana. What will it be? Rage? Desire? Despair? Pride? Her defense—and her offense, for that matter—depend upon the type of demon trying to force its way in.

When the mirrored wall finally shatters in an explosion of glittering shards, Amelle manifests a shield. But the deafening roar of demons never materializes. There comes instead slow, crunching footsteps.

Soon she is staring up into her own face. _What in the Void?_

The other woman blinks.Stares. “What in the Void?” 

Amelle doesn’t look away. Beyond rational thought, staring is the best she can do at the moment.“My thoughts… exactly.”

The woman’s mouth presses into a thin line.“Not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny; that’s my _name,_ ” she retorts, and although Amelle isn’t exactly over the shock of having been placed face to face with herself, enough surprise has subsided, allowing her to notice certain differences between herself and this other woman. First and foremost—her double isn’t carrying a staff. She has, instead, a greatsword in hand.Instead of robes, she’s wearing plate armor, the heaviest Amelle has ever seen, with sharp edges and angles and chain mail.A red sash hangs across the front of her breastplate.It bears only a whisper of similarity to her own battle robes—though Amelle’s first impression is that there is something about the other woman’s bearing that deserves a flaming sword at her chest.

Eyes going back to her double’s face, Amelle now takes in some of the more subtle differences in this other version of herself. The warrior’s face is fuller, with a sharper jaw; her hair is pulled back into a high tail that spirals down in a long dark coil, with tiny curls escaping along her hairline.This version is also, Amelle realizes with a pang of annoyance, a little taller than she.Perhaps it’s the plate armor.She hopes so.

“It cannot be your name,” the warrior counters. “It is mine.” After a beat she adds, “Are you a _mage_?”

“Ask me again,” Amelle drawls, “only this time try not saying _mage_ in the same tone you’d use to say _dung beetle._ ”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The other Hawke briefly takes in their surroundings before fixing her attention on Amelle, clearly assessing and finding her wanting “You’re a mage, and you appear to be as trapped as I.” She tilts her head and says, coolly, “You must not be a very skilled one.”

Amelle looks up with a jerk. “I beg your pardon?”

The other woman, deciding she’s no threat, sheathes her sword. “Aren’t mages meant to be masters of the Fade?”

Amelle plants the base of her stave against the stones at her feet with a sharp little _tap_. “Who in the Void have you been talking to? Mages, masters of the Fade? Either you’ve read _The Circle Blackguard_ one too many times or someone’s been having you on.”

“I don’t read that tawdry trash.”

Amelle holds her tongue just long enough that she won’t say something regrettable. “Yes. Well. I’d say it’s been a pleasure speaking with you, but my mother taught me never to lie.” And, with a little salute, she turns on her heel and continues on her way, softly crunching through broken glass.

The other Hawke calls out after here. “Who trapped you here?”

Her steps do not slow. “By your own logic, a mage of superior skill,” she tosses back.

“Was it a magister?”

Amelle stops, turning her head a fraction, but does not turn around. “Once more?”

“Was it a magister that trapped you here?”

Still, Amelle does not turn; she only looks over her shoulder at the other Hawke. “If it was?”

The warrior’s bearing doesn’t shift; she barely appears to breathe. “Then we have an enemy in common.”

Amelle finally turns. “In addition to our faces and names, you mean.”

“I suppose I do.”

“You were abominably rude, you know. I’m certain I’ve never been that rude.”

“I have little enough time for niceties.” Her double’s expression darkens to a scowl—an impressive one, to be sure. Amelle knows all of Fenris’ scowls, and he’s an expert in the field. “I have no wish to remain here longer than I must.”

“Something else we have in common.” Amelle is no _master of the Fade_ , whatever that is, but neither is she innately trusting of any being she encounters in the Fade. Even one wearing her face. “So, who is our common enemy?”

“I suspect it is Tevinter magister by the name of Danarius.”

Amelle’s expression remains perfectly impassive; she almost wishes Isabela were there to see it— _almost_. She has not forgotten what transpired the last time her friend accompanied her to the Fade and is in no rush whatsoever to engage a repeat performance. “And what reason,” she asks, her tone measured, disinterested, “would Danarius have for banishing you to the Fade?”

“He has not only trapped me here, but my companions as well.” She hesitates, clenching her teeth. “It was an ambush.” Her face twists with annoyance speaking of it—clearly a point of wounded pride. “We are caught here, and Danarius is probably well on his way out of Kirkwall with Fenris.”

“ _What?_ ”

The other Hawke flushes with anger, her cheeks pink, her eyes bright. “The magister Danarius is even now on his way to the Imperium with Fenris.”

Amelle does not know this woman, she does not her friends, but this news sends the blood roaring in her ears. “How? How did he…”

“Fenris received a missive—it turned out to be a false message from a dead sister.” Hawke grinds her teeth. “Killed by Danarius’ hand. But we discovered the truth too late.”

“Then… then we both have to get out of here, as quickly as possible.” She turns, crunching through shattered glass as she paces, endless reflections dancing in her peripheral vision. “I need to get out and you need to find your friends.” Short quick steps take Amelle in another circle. “How long have you been here?”

Hawke shakes her head. “I have no way of knowing. Hours, perhaps. Perhaps days.”

Amelle swallows hard. Time passes differently in the Fade—it might be too late for that Fenris. It isn’t too late for _her_ , not yet. She has a body to take back, a life that she cannot allow Danarius to destroy.

But neither can Amelle turn her back on another she might be able to help.

“If we…” she stops pacing circles and faces Hawke. “I propose we travel together. If we find your friends before I find a way out, I will help you free them.”

An eternity of silence passes and Amelle wonders if this version of herself is weighing her options, too. Finally: “You propose an alliance, then.”

Casting another look around at the endless mirrors, she shrugs. “For want of a better term, I suppose.”

The warrior Hawke frowns and folds her arms over her plated chest. “And how do I know you aren’t a demon attempting to trick me? You may well be lulling me into a false sense of security with propositions of an alliance.”

Amelle mirrors her stance, wondering how imposing she looks in comparison. Probably not much. She lifts her chin and says, archly, “I could ask you the same.”

The warrior Hawke considers something. “You haven’t yet shared how you came to be stuck here.”

“It’s hardly as straightforward as an ambush,” she replies with a grimace. “Danarius is dead, but… somehow, found a way through the Veil. And,” she spreads her arms, “managed to evict my spirit from my body.” Before the other woman can ask the obvious question, she holds up one finger, forestalling it. “I don’t know how he did it because it should not be possible.”

“So how do you know it was Danarius at all?”

Amelle snorts. “If he was trying to keep it a secret, he did so horribly.”

“What you’re saying, then, is your body has been possessed.”

“By Danarius. Yes. ”

Hawke listens, taking no pains to hide her considerable doubt.“You realize that sounds ludicrous. Are you some kind of necromancer, then?”

“Makers balls _,_ are you demented? _No_ , I’m not a bloody, blighted necromancer! Do I look like one? Would a sodding necromancer offer to _help_ you?”

“One might.” Her double goes quiet and Amelle can only assume she’s mulling over the situation—she’s almost certainly _not_ mulling over an apology. “Assuming you are in earnest, I suppose we have an accord,” she finally says. “A temporary one.” A pause follows before she adds, “Until you reveal yourself to be either a necromancer or a demon.”

“Right back at you,” is Amelle’s grim reply.

#

As he hurries into Darktown, Fenris cannot quell the prickling fear that Anders will not where he should be, that the clinic will be shut up and quiet—sudden, inexplicable worry swells and burns beneath his skin, flaring in his gut, making his heart pound even harder.His relief at spying the lantern’s soft glow in that dark niche is near to overwhelming, and he exhales a shuddering breath, gripping Hawke’s slack body tighter against his chest.That the mage is at home means there is some slight hope.It means he may have an ally—and he never would have considered Anders as such, but—

Shifting Hawke in his arms, Fenris knocks—pounds—on the clinic door.It takes—or feels like it takes—an age for Anders to answer, but answer he does, his face pale with dark smudges beneath eyes red from too little sleep.He is rumpled, tousled, and very clearly exhausted and just as obviously displeased to have been pulled from slumber.But it takes only seconds for Anders’ bleariness to snap into sharp focus, when he realizes it’s Hawke Fenris carries in his arms.A bruise is already blossoming along the line of her jaw.

“She needs your help,” he says, barely keeping the tumble of words back.There is no time.It is his dearest hope Hawke wakes restored, but Fenris knows Danarius, knows he will not relinquish this supposed victory so easily.

“Maker’s blood,” Anders breathes, stepping back and letting them through as a wave of magic ripples through the clinic, setting the lanterns alight.“What—who did this to her?” he asks, running a thumb along the bruise.

“I did.”

The reply earns Fenris Anders’ shock, followed swiftly by disapproval. “Next question: _why?_ ”

Fenris doesn’t answer—he strides to the back of the clinic and gently sets Hawke on a long table.Her head lolls to the side, drawing his eye to the spot where he’d hit her.Necessary though it was, guilt clutches at his insides.He would never—he would _never…_

But he has.Much as he tells himself it was necessary, the reassurances are cold comfort.

“She needs your help,” he says again, tersely.“We… we require rope and magebane.”

“Wait—wait.”Anders lets the door close behind him and follows Fenris to the table.“Rope? _Magebane?_ Have you gone completely mad?You _know_ what magebane does—and what it does to Hawke, specifically.What—”

Rounding on the mage, Fenris snarls, “There is no time for questions!”

“Then make time!” Anders shouts back.“Telling me Hawke needs my help when it looks like she went ten rounds with a bronto—come to find out it was you—and then demanding I, what, tie her up and drug her?That’s hardly _help_.”

Fenris closes his eyes and breathes deeply.Anders… isn’t wrong, but time is a luxury they have so very little of at the moment.So when he speaks to explain, he does so quickly, recounting facts and events and mincing no words while doing so.

“Danarius?” Anders echoes in shock, once Fenris is done.He’s looking again at Hawke’s face, so calm, so _normal_ in repose.Disbelief etches across his features.“Hawke came round asking strange questions about ghosts, but she never hinted this was the problem.”

Another wave of guilt tightens inside Fenris.He knows precisely why Hawke didn’t share the particulars with Anders or Merrill.“I know.”

“But that’s—”

“Impossible,” Fenris supplies.“As Hawke has said.As the various books and scrolls have said.The only one who hasn’t called it impossible is Merrill, and that is based on little more than a children’s tale.One that is… largely irrelevant, given the current situation.”

With a slow, distracted nod, light flares around Anders hands as he places them on either side of Hawke’s head, saying, “It sounds as if he—he somehow used her healing abilities against her.I’ve heard of that—of spirit healers being fooled by demons, mistaking them for their healing spirit and inviting them in.”

“This happened… after,” Fenris admits.“After she healed me.”

“The connection was open then,” the mage murmurs to himself. “And he just… used it.”He pulls his hands away from Hawke’s head, the light at his hands going dim.“Strange,” he says quietly.

“Elaborate.”

“Hawke’s magic, her mana, has a… a particular resonance to it,” he explains.“The same can be said of any mage.Mine is different, as is Merrill’s.It’s all in how we… reach for our mana and manipulate it.”His eyes meet Fenris’ and he says, “I can’t feel hers.You’re… you’re right.Wherever Hawke is, she isn’t where she ought to be; she’s distant.” 

This realization is enough to spur Anders into motion, and in a rustle of robes he moves quickly across the dim clinic, crouching before a moldy trunk and pulling free coils of thick rope from within.Tossing that to Fenris, he then retrieves from a smaller chest a shimmering vial of what Fenris knows by now is magebane.They settle Hawke’s limp form to a heavy chair, binding her securely.While she is still unresponsive, they dose her with the potion, tipping her head back and oh, so carefully pouring the vial past her lips, massaging her throat until it’s gone.

Their task is done, the fear and urgency that has been fueling Fenris to this point recedes all at once, leaving his skin clammy and cold, his stomach roiling.He clenches his hands to fists to hide how they’re trembling.

“I have a bad feeling this going to get worse before it gets better.”

Fenris hates how sure he is Anders is right.


	7. Seven

The first thing they decide—indeed, the first thing they’re able to agree on, is that Amelle will answer to Amelle, and she will call the other woman Hawke. It makes a great deal of sense, though Amelle can’t deny feeling a little absurd over the arrangement.

They push through the mirrored maze, occasionally arguing over which direction to go when the path splits. As they continue, Amelle cannot help but steal surreptitious little looks at Hawke. She’s so incredibly different—different enough to make Amelle wonder how her own life might’ve taken a different turn if she’d never been born a mage.

This especially concerns Hawke’s extra height. Where’d _that_ come from? It couldn’t just be the armor, surely.

“You know,” Amelle begins, after they’d walked in silence too long. “I have to confess to some curiosity.”

“Curiosity?” Hawke echoes.

“Well, clearly we had different childhoods, if you learned more martial skills.” She gestures, a little helplessly. “I’m just wondering about the… specifics of our differences.”

Hawke tilts her head and says, on what almost sounds as if it could be a laugh—and, yes, they have the same dimple in their left cheek. “Are you asking me to tell you a little about myself?”

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ not curious,” Amelle counters.

With an aggrieved sigh—one that sounds more than a little put-upon, Hawke says, “I’m the first-born to Malcolm and Leandra Hawke. I have three younger siblings—“

“Wait—three?” Amelle breaks in.

Hawke’s initial annoyance at the interruption fades to puzzlement. “Don’t you?”

“Only two,” Amelle says, shaking her head. “The twins.”

Hawke, to her credit, looks discomfited. “Mother gave birth to Killian when the twins were still small—about three.”

“Killian Hawke,” Amelle echoes. “A boy, then.” She smiles a little, though her heart twists. She starts walking again; it doesn’t take long before they fall in step with one another. “Carver always felt so outnumbered at home.”

“Not at our home.” Her reply is rich with remembered amusement. “Battle lines were very clearly drawn.”

“And… and are any of your siblings mages?” Amelle asks. To own the truth of it, though, she isn’t sure she wants to know the answer.

Hawke shakes her head vigorously enough to set her ponytail swinging. “Maker, no. None of us are, luckily enough.”

Amelle, very pointedly, says nothing. She continues saying nothing until Hawke realizes her words. She dips her head a fraction, a little sheepish. “Ah. No offense intended.”

“Hmph. Very little taken.”

Imagining such a different upbringing calls to mind Amelle’s childhood. A family consisting of three apostates made secrecy a necessity. More than that, until the farm at Lothering, the Hawke family had lived knowing the time might come—and had, more than once—to pull up roots and move house at barely more than a moment’s notice.

Envy itches under her skin, a little, but jealousy at this juncture is fruitless. And pointless.

“Does your silence mean that your family is different?”

“It is,” Amelle admits, looking ahead, into the mirrored middle distance. “I can hardly imagine that sort of life,” she says. “Bethany and I are both mages.” She stops short suddenly, her heart twisting again, _harder_. “That is… Bethany—she was a mage.” The words are still difficult to say, even so many years later. “A darkspawn took her life as we fled Ferelden.”

Startled, Hawke blinks, and Amelle can see all too clearly she’s thinking of _her_ Bethany. “Do you mean to say you could not heal her?”

The words don’t only cut, they sting and ooze a mixture of regret and self-recrimination. Hawke offers an apology but Amelle waves it away. “No. I was younger, then. Less skilled. I could mend broken bones, ease a headache, lower a fever. But… her spirit had crossed the Veil. Even if I were the mage I am now, I don’t know if I could have saved her.” She makes a face at this. “Or that’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. Danarius’ evident bending—nay, _contorting_ of the rules notwithstanding.”

They walk on, comparing their lives, the varying twists and turns, the changes in circumstance. Evidently Hawke’s mother had been the heiress to the entire Amell estate; Gamlen had died in a bar brawl some years after she’d left Kirkwall to marry Malcolm Hawke. This Hawke hadn’t known poverty, much less a year of indentured servitude. She understood what it meant to possess a sense of familial pride, thanks to there being no uncle to squander the entire family fortune and lose the estate to gambling debts.

“So how was it you happened upon Varric?” Amelle asks. “If it wasn’t because you were tired of scrabbling by, yearning for fame and fortune?”

She shrugs. “We were in the right place at the right time. Varric needed investors, and I needed…” she trails off.

“Yes?” Amelle prompts.

Finally Hawke says, “Satisfaction. A challenge. Accomplishment.”

“And now?”

“I keep my eye to the horizon. Something always comes along. I’ve made a name for myself, so things do more often than not. Thankfully Mother is invested in making sure Killian meets all the right young ladies and Bethany meets all the right young men. She’ll have Carver married off and making babies before Summerday, which leaves me to pursue what I wish.”

Amelle swallows hard. In that world Leandra Amell is alive.

She doesn’t want to know how. She doesn’t want to learn that the difference between her mother’s life and death depended on having a family around her that hadn’t been divided by death, grief, and blame. If Leandra Amell’s children—plus one!—had been there for her to dote on, to plan with, to be a meddlesome, matchmaking busybody—

_Oh, Mother._

She dashes away the sting of tears with the back of one hand. Before she can offer any excuse, the unmistakable sounds of battle erupt somewhere ahead of them. The conversation forgotten, they break into a run, and only after a few wrong turns they round a corner and discover the source of the commotion.

The first thing Amelle notices is how many mirrors have been shattered; glinting slivers cover the ground, crunching under their feet.The second thing she notices is the utter river of demons, one after another after another, pouring out through, of all things, an open _door._ It is set incongruously in one of the mirrored walls, an archway of perfectly fitted black stones outlining it. The door is an intriguing matter to ask about later, but for now demons demand Amelle’s attention. They move with singleminded determination to the object of their ire: a lone archer, who is doing her level best to keep them at bay. But Amelle can see they’re advancing, and the archer is running out of arrows.

Then the archer moves, her arm a blur, and a glinting-something whizzes through the air—it’s a dagger, now helpfully embedded in a desire demon’s throat. The demon flings its head back and looses an inhuman screech so loud the mirrors tremble with it.

Low on arrows, perhaps, but she is not out of tricks.

“Not that I don’t _love_ playing to an audience,” the archer calls out, once the demon’s scream has subsided, “but I wouldn’t say no to a little assistance if either of you care to give it!”

“After an invitation like that, how can we say no?” Amelle asks Hawke, pulling her staff free.

Hawke only gives a brief, fierce smile before drawing her sword and charging in, every inch the vanguard. Amelle and the archer position themselves to either side of the stream of apparently never-ending demons.Amelle freezes a sloth demon and shatters it, and on her next breath of mana she flings a shield over Hawke to keep a rage demon from successfully flanking her.

“Where are they all coming from?” Amelle shouts above the din.

The archer replies, “Would you hate me if I admitted that door wasn’t open when I found it?”

Hawke cleaves a sloth demon in half. “So this is your fault?”

Another arrow flies, this one aflame, and lands solidly in the shiny hide of another desire demon. “I thought it was a way out! So sue me!”

Amelle calls a storm of lightning and a series of jagged, blindingly bright bolts target a number of demons at once, taking them down and giving them a little room to breathe. As lightning flashes blindingly bright in the remaining mirrors, flashing like tiny suns in the broken glass littering the ground, Amelle summons a wall of ice, driving it into a rage demon. The demon looses a guttural howl as it dies. “Survival first, litigation later!”

They fight well together, Amelle notes, and the seedling of suspicion blossoms the moment she catches a look at the archer’s face.

The tall, slender woman in lightweight leather armor is… her.

But demons continue to flow through the open doorway, leaving no time for commentary. Amelle breathes in, summoning mana enough to shift her magic into a storm of fire following the lightning. The pain she’d experienced earlier is less than it was, but a lingering ache remains. The sensation is more tolerable now, which either means she’s growing used to it, or it is truly lessening.

She isn’t sure which of those possibilities ought to worry her.

Once the fireballs are a scorching memory, she calls a blizzard twined through with chains of lightning to freeze and shatter rage demons; she stuns sloth demons long enough for Hawke to swing her greatsword, its arc cutting effortlessly through oozing flesh. Amelle paralyzes desire demons while the archer peppers them with arrows. Terrible dual-toned screams fill the air and shake the mirrored walls.

And when the last arrow flies from her bow, the archer withdraws a set of deadly daggers, moving deeper into the fray with as much ease as Amelle has ever seen from Isabela.This Hawke ducks and twists, evading attacks as if she were simply in the middle of an intricate dance. Her blades slice the demons’ hides, often too quickly for the creatures to notice their injury at all. She spins, agile as any ballerina, her blades decapitating one foe before she moves on to the next.

By the time the final demon falls, its wail dwindling to a whimper, this segment of the corridor is covered in gore. The stench of charred demon flesh, smoke, and lingering sparks of lightning mingle into something unspeakably foul.

In the center of the carnage stands the archer. This Hawke’s dark hair is loose, tumbling well past her shoulders in gently tangling curls.A broad, bright smile stretches her mouth and lights her eyes, at odds with the streak of blood smeared across one cheek.

“Well, I’ll be damned. This is an interesting little twist, isn’t it?” the archer asks, carefully picking her way through the broken glass and demon remains.Where the warrior had crunched through the shards, this woman’s step is silent.“The Fade will be the Fade will be the Fade.”She stops, jutting out one hip and bracing a fist upon it, and sighs.“Maker’s _balls_ , but I hate the Fade.”

Amelle glances at Hawke. She’s eyeing the archer with deep suspicion..“You… don’t seem terribly surprised,” she says slowly.

“Then I’m being uncharacteristically obtuse. I’m plenty surprised, though after some of what I’ve seen go on in the Fade, I’m almost disappointed in myself for being surprised at all.”The archer jerks a thumb at the mirrors all around them, cracked, blackened in spots, and covered in matter.“I think we can agree there’s a bit of a theme at work here, yes?Mirrors, reflections—and now, real-life, so to speak, doubles. Unless you’re demons, which I suppose is possible.”She narrows her eyes and Amelle and the warrior.“You aren’t demons, are you?I’ll be incredibly put out if I have to kill the first remotely friendly faces I’ve seen since turning up here.“ Then she wrinkles her nose and sighs. “Of course ‘I’m not a demon’ is exactly the sort of thing one would say, even if they were a demon in the Fade. So I imagine we’ll have to figure out something better than the honor system, but first I think introductions are in order?”

“Now you’ve stopped to take a breath, you can call me Hawke,” the warrior says, unimpressed with this Hawke’s facility with prattle.

“Call me Amelle.”

“Excellent,” the archer says, beaming.“We’ll call me Mely, then. Nearly everybody does, anyway, so that should mean less confusion in the long run.” She pauses, pulling free her longbow and examining the string. “I think it should. If I’m wrong we’ll find out soon enough.” The longbow returns to her back.

 _Mely._ Amelle’s throat closes around the name. _Mely_ conjures memories of happier times and a family whole and not fractured apart by death and misfortune. _Mely_ was a girl who got happily lost in wheat fields, who found fairy rings in the thicket behind their little farmhouse, who loved nothing better than to swing from the tattered rope hanging from an old yew tree and fling herself into the icy pond, its surface sparkling with summer sunlight. _Mely_ was the girl who flew, arms and legs flailing in the air, her delighted screams mingling with birdsong until she broke the surface of that pond and sent droplets of water splashing everywhere, like tiny slivers of a shattered mirror.

Carver seldom ever calls her Mely anymore.Nobody else even knows the nickname.

“All right,” she says, forced cheer fighting past the sudden dryness in her mouth.“Mely it is.”

Before the archer can reply, however, a low rumble churns violet clouds in the purple sky. The sound deepens until Amelle’s teeth rattle in her head, until the mirrored walls tremble and crack, fissures running through their reflections, splitting them over and over again until the walls are nothing but splintering webs of cracks. Amelle claps her hands over her ears, but it provides no relief—the thunder has become tremors, and those tremors jolt and judder through her.

What remains of the ruined mirrored walls begin to shake, sending a cascade of sparkling fragments down around them. Instinctively, Amelle summons a shield in time for the glass to dissolve into glittering sand around them.

By the time she releases the barrier, letting it shimmer into nothing, the maze of mirrored walls have been replaced with walls of glossy, black stonework, punctuated only by doors on either side, very like the door through which so many demons charged. The doors are as varied as the stone is smooth—some are wood the color of honey while others are a deep red-brown. Still others shimmer with metal accents or glitter with shining gems.The only one standing open is the heavy, plain door of dark, riveted wood that had released the torrent of demons.

The sky above is still violet.

“I hope they don’t all hide the same surprise,” Amelle says, reaching up to press one hand against the wall, flat and black like onyx; it is cool and hard against her palm. It is most definitely stone; nothing of the mirrors remain, except for the sand beneath their feet.

“What in the name of Andraste’s frilly panties was _that_?” the archer blurts, whirling around.

Hawke shakes her head and looks at the walls, steps turning her in a small circle. “It changed after you turned up,” she says bluntly.

“So,” Mely drawls, “are we blaming me for this development? Because I’m pretty sure I’d be offended by that.” She grins until a dimple shows in her left cheek.

“No,” Amelle says, shaking her head as she turns.“No more mirrors.I think—I think—”

The stone is cold, unyielding.But the mirrors are gone. _This is the Fade. Nothing is restrained by logic, but nothing is accidental, either. This has to mean something—it must mean—_

“Whatever’s happened, I think it means…”Amelle trails off, trying to concentrate.She curls her hand, still pressed against the wall, into a fist until blunted nails press into her palm.

Mirrors all around them, three women with the same face, the same name—reflections in their own right.Perhaps…

“I think…”

_Perhaps…_

She turns to face the other two versions of herself.There is _something_ here. But Amelle’s head feels thick, as if stuffed with wet wool; it’s nothing a little lyrium potion wouldn’t help, but there’s none to be had. 

_No more mirrors. No more reflections._

“Maybe it means I showed up just in time,” Mely says.

The words shift the wool in her head, but can’t pierce it.

Amelle shakes her head, trying to clear it.“Maybe. Let’s keep walking. With luck some of these doors lead somewhere.”

She only hopes that “somewhere” is not further into Danarius’ trap.

#

When Danarius wakes, the confusion that flashes across her face is genuine; Fenris is certain of that.She glares down at her wrists bound to the chair’s thick arms, and then up at Fenris—

And sees Anders.

Her eyes go wide with fright and hope and the very look on her face twists Fenris’ stomach into sick knots.“Anders, please.”The tear in her voice sounds so genuine Fenris flinches. “You’ve got to help me—Fenris has—he’s gone mad!”She tips her head, thebetter to show him her bruised jaw.“H-he _hit_ me, Anders!He’s—something’s wrong with Fenris, please _help—_ ”

It is a convincing performance.For a moment, Fenris himself is nearly persuaded to believe it.But he holds perfectly still and waits and watches.

“Fenris already told me what happened,” Anders says evenly.He gives nothing away.

“Then he’s lying!” she cries, eyes huge and green and shining with unshed tears.“Please, Anders—he’s frightening me.I don’t know what’s happened to him—he’s—I think—I think he’s given me magebane— _please,_ Anders, _help me._ ”

Neither Anders nor Fenris says anything for several long moments.Then Anders sends him a slantwise look and nods once.

“That was probably the worst attempt at Hawke I’ve ever seen,” he tells Danarius, arms crossed. 

Like a falling leaf or a suddenly shed cloak, the terrified mien and tearful eyes vanish into something like rueful amusement.

“Well,” she drawls.“You can’t blame me for trying.”

“In any case,” Anders goes on, “you’re right about the magebane.All the better to keep you from doing something regrettable.”

Fenris’ stomach clenches at the chuckle that comes next, so terrible and familiar, in Hawke’s voice.“I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t regret anything I did in this body,” she purrs.

“It’s not you we’re concerned about,” Anders retorts.“We’d rather no impossible messes for Hawke when she comes back.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Danarius says, true laughter creeping into her voice.“Oh, you think she’s coming _back?_ ”When neither of them reply, she lifts her eyebrows in delighted surprise and laughs _._ “That _is_ adorable.Really.”And then, in an instant, the mirth is gone and in its place is a glare as hard, as uncompromising as slate.“She isn’t coming back.In fact, with every hour I remain in her body, the more it opens up to me. The more I own it. The more I _become_ it.”

Fenris speaks without thinking whether he wants to know the answer or not.“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my boy, that your sweetheart’s memories are giving themselves over to me.”Before Fenris can reply—and he’s not sure he can just then—Danarius looks down at her bound wrists, flexing her fingers meditatively.“Now this… this is an interesting development, to be sure.”She sends a sly look up through the fringe of dark hair.“And I can tell you right now I know you’ve never been so… _deviant_ with your light o’ love.”

“Be silent,” he grinds out through a clenched jaw.

But Danarius does not stop.

“Fascinating you aren’t shy about taking such a tack with me.Tell me—what exactly do you expect to… _do_ with me like this?”Her smile is mocking and cruel and worst of all _goading._ “Are you going to pay me back for all those years, Fenris?You have me, after all.Bound.Helpless.You know all too well how that feels, don’t you?”Her eyes narrow and bore into him until he cannot bear it a second longer.“Has the student suddenly become the master?Are you going to… _demonstrate_ all you’ve learned under my very careful tutelage?”

Fenris is keenly aware of Anders’ eyes on him, even as the blood drains from his face.“Stop,” he growls; forced through his teeth, the word barely resembles any recognizable language.

“I will not stop,” she says impudently.“Because _I know you._ And I’m gradually coming to know Hawke more intimately, as well.I know you would rather die than harm her—which is how I know, when all is said and done, when you’ve figured out she isn’t coming back, you _will_ return to Minrathous with me.Because we’ve already discussed the alternatives, and since I know you haven’t got the spine to—”

 _“Enough!”_ His roar thunders through the clinic, through his ears, louder even than the relentless pounding of his heart.The sharp crack of flesh against flesh, though, is enough to startle him back to stillness.

Hawke’s head snaps to the side.Blood beads up deep red at the corner of her mouth, trickling in a thin, jagged line downward to her chin. 

“Fenris…” Anders begins, but Fenris does not want to hear whatever the mage has to say.He can only stare in horrified disbelief at what he has done.

Shoulders shaking, Danarius tips her head back, the smile at her mouth so sharp, made all the more feral by the blood staining her teeth.And she _laughs._ “Get it out of your system now, my little wolf.While you can.”

“Fenris,” Anders says again.He tips his head a fraction, barely acknowledging the mage at all.“A word?”

For all he wants to bristle at whatever Anders has to say, Fenris cannot muster the ire—especially not when the mage would be _right._ He turns on a silent heel and follows the other man to the far side of the clinic, knowing what will come next—he is a wild dog, barely tame enough to be allowed on a leash.He has no place here, and especially no place by Hawke’s side if he can succumb so quickly to false words spoken by a false tongue.

He knows.And worse, he agrees.

“We have a problem,” he says, his voice low.

“Yes. I… cannot allow myself to be—“

“No. For once your temper is not the problem.” Anders glances back at Danarius and shakes his head, minutely. “What Danarius is saying shouldn’t be possible. In fact I’d be inclined to call it a lie, but for the fact that this type of possession shouldn’t be possible, either. But if Hawke is… trapped, somehow, and if Danarius in fact has access to any part of her mind, then we must—“

“Get her out,” Fenris says. “Quickly.”

“Exactly.”He looks up over at where Danarius sits, blood still smearing her mouth. “And to do that, we’re going to need to know just what kind of spell he used. I don’t think he was bluffing about her memories being transferred to him, which suggests to me that whatever the spell is, there’s some kind of time limit on it—Hawke has only so much memory, after all. No idea how we’re meant to figure that out, but… well, one insurmountable problem at a time.We’re also going to need assistance.I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Carver would be a help.We’re going to need more eyes than just yours and mine watching over Danarius.I don’t have any illusions that keeping him— _her,_ blighted pronouns—under the influence of magebane is going to be an easy task.”

Fenris nods slowly.“…Then heal the cut at her mouth,” he says.

Anders’ brows lift.“I hardly think Hawke is going to hold that against you once she’s back.”

“It is not that,” he replies.“Danarius was—is—a blood mage.I was not thinking clearly.I will not provide his spirit the means to…sully Hawke so.”

After a long, thick silence, Anders nods.“I take your point.So, all we have to do is keep Danarius… subdued, and pull Hawke out of the Fade.”He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush.“That shouldn’t be difficult _at all._ ”


	8. Eight

Every door they try is maddeningly locked—they remain locked against even Mely’s lock picking tools, which makes Hawke comment once again whether she truly possesses has a rogue’s storied skill set. But Mely only pulls a face at Hawke, sometimes sticking out her tongue, other times crossing her eyes or contorting her features into something hideous and absurd, and tries another door.

There is another problem, though, and one more troubling to Amelle than locked doors.

With every step, every turn, every attempted lock, Amelle finds it harder and harder to focus. She knows perfectly well nothing in the Fade is ever as it seems, but when she tries to pull apart events in her head so that she might dissect and analyze them, her thoughts slip away like water.

“You know…” Mely has chattered nearly endlessly since joining them, a pleasant change from Hawke, who is roughly as taciturn as Fenris— “there is one good thing about the three of us being here.” She tries a door. Unsurprisingly, it’s locked. 

“If you’ve found a silver lining,” Amelle replies, watching Mely drop to one knee in yet another attempt to pick yet another lock in yet another unyielding door, “I’m all too glad to hear it.”

“Assuming you two are real and not apparitions I dreamed up,” she says, jiggling her tools in the lock, “we’ve three different collections of people very likely working their tails off to figure out how to undo whatever’s been done.I don’t know about either of you, I’m fairly certain my friends won’t leave me to rot in here. Whatever brand of spell this is,” Mely pauses to mutter an invective at the lock and stands again, delivering an annoyed kick to the door, “they’ll figure it out.”

“Hawke’s people may yet be in here with us somewhere. But you make an excellent point,” she replies, brow furrowing as she latches on to what else Mely had said. 

_Assuming you two are real_. 

Real or not, Mely and Hawke told tales of different worlds, different sets of experiences (Mely’s mother lived—Carver perished on the journey from Lothering and Bethy succumbed to the darkspawn taint in the Deep Roads, news that brought Amelle a strange blend of heartbreak and gratitude), and three slightly different sets of companions.Mely’s Anders is Tranquil and Isabela is an apostate mage—though still a pirate, evidently, for she calls herself the Witch of the Waking Sea.

There has also been some incredibly frank, entirely unsolicited commentary that leaves no question whatsoever in Amelle’s mind that Mely and Isabela are an item. Some less frank, veiled commentary (still unsolicited) leads Amelle to suspect Fenris occasionally joins them.

Mely looks at Hawke. “You think your friends are trapped here, too?”

“If they are not, the only other likelihood is they’ve been killed.”

Glancing back at Amelle, Mely makes a face. “She needs to work on her optimism, don’t you think?”

Amelle opts not to reply, trying the handle of another door instead. It jiggles, but does not yield. “Regardless, I have no doubt Fenris is rousing everyone out of bed and rallying the troops as we speak.”

Hawke takes no pains to hide her surprise. “Fenris?He… tolerates you, then?”

Though these women wear her face, she is reluctant to share anything so deeply personal.“He is… important to me.”Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she adds, “There’s no one I trust more.” 

A beat of silence passes, but it is brief.Mely’s laugh is one of high-pitched delight.“You _bedded_ him!”

“Wait—it’s not—“ Amelle protests, her face turning suddenly, unbearably hot.“It wasn’t _like_ that!It wasn’t a—a _bedding._ It was—”

“You completely bedded him,” Mely crows.“Tell us _everything._ And don’t skimp on the details. I want to know how yours measures up to mine.” She waggles her eyebrows comically at the innuendo.“Especially tattoo-related details. Does yours do the thing with—”

“No. No, we are not discussing this.”

“Amelle,” Mely needles her, poking her in the back with the tip of her bow, scattering the thoughts she’d tried so hard to collect; Amelle starts walking if only to get away from the pointy end of Mely’s bow. “Tell us _everything._ ”

“I don’t need to hear _everything_ ,” Hawke argues.“There is nothing to be gained by giggling over him like gushing schoolgirls _._ ”

Mely sends a long, disdainful look at Hawke, then turns a grin back to Amelle. _Prude,_ she mouths as she stops to jiggle the handle of a dented pewter door; it doesn’t budge. “I mean, the Fenris I know joins in now and again, but that’s entirely physical and he and Isabela have reached a sort of detente.” She pauses to consider her lockpicks a moment, eventually deciding not to attempt the lock on the pewter door. “But that doesn’t sound like what you’ve got. So how’d you win him over?”

“I didn’t… _do_ anything. I just treated him like he deserves to be treated.” When Mely doesn’t reply—indeed, she looks a little puzzled—Amelle adds. “Respect. I treated him with _respect._ No blood magic, no mind control. Respect, decency, and kindness.”

“Right, right,” Mely says airily, moving across the hall to another door; she drops to a crouch and works at a lock. “So is yours good in the sack?”

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

Mely’s bright green eyes slide over to watch Hawke. She winks. “That’s a yes. Don’t let her turn me into a frog, okay?”

Hawke rolls her eyes in disgust and continues down the hall. “I am fairly certain that does not exist in a spirit healer’s repertoire.”

“Now _that’s_ interesting, too. The Champion of Kirkwall is a… a healer.” Mely wrinkles her nose. “You’ve got to admit it’s lacking a sort of panache.”

“A healer who can summon a storm of impeccably-aimed lightning that saved your behind,” Amelle retorts, tartly.

“Well, you were definitely a help.” Something about her tone sends Amelle’s hackles bristling. “But you have to admit it’s a little unorthodox.”

“Unorthodox,” Amelle counters, “does not mean _ineffective._ I wouldn’t have survived single combat against the Arishok otherwise. So don’t worry about me not being able to hold my end of a fight.”

Ahead of them, Hawke snorts, but Mely does a poor job of hiding her smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, spirit healer.”

#

Kirkwall is silent but for Fenris’ quiet, hurried footsteps against the stones.Gaining passage to the Gallows at such an hour is difficult but not impossible, though it takes the clink of extra coins the the ferryman’s hand if Fenris doesn’t want to wait around for dawn, when the templars’ duty-shifts change.

For reasons he understands perfectly, Hawke has never made an overt attempt to visit her brother at the Keep.She has, however, gone out of her way to find out news where she can, even paying for it when she has to.Fenris isn’t sure whether he will be permitted to speak to Carver, or if Hawke’s brother will want to speak with him.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to look long to find Carver Hawke.He’s on duty tonight—this morning?—guarding the Circle courtyard, the space dark but for flickering torches casting half-circles of light above each knight standing guard.

Before now, Fenris hadn’t given much thought to what his presence here at such an hour might mean to Hawke’s brother; he has been too concerned with Hawke’s condition, too twisted up in the mystery of it, in what measures they may have to take to undo it.But the way Carver straightens, his heavy plate scraping and jangling softly with the movement, tells Fenris enough—Carver has seen him and has already assumed the worst.

Such an assumption is not terribly far from the truth.

“Fenris?” Carver says, his voice low.In the dim light he tilts his head, looking into the darkness behind Fenris—looking for his sister, no doubt.“What in blazes are you doing here at this hour?”

“I require your assistance.”

“You require it?” he echoes, placing particular emphasis on _you._ Another ripple of movement follows as Carver shifts his weight. “What’s happened?” he whispers.

Fenris glances around them; Carver is not alone on guard duty, and Fenris is reluctant to say anything that could be overheard by the wrong ears.“I… cannot discuss it here.Your sister is—”

Compromised?

Unwell?

Was there a less-worrisome euphemism for _possessed_?

He draws in a breath that is too tight, too hot in his lungs, and forces the words to form.“Your sister is in the Darktown clinic.She needs you.Go to her, as soon as you can.I—or Anders—will explain all.”

Though his eyes widen and betray his concern, Carver does not argue, does not press beyond, “What’s happened—what’s wrong with Amelle?”

“I… cannot tell you.Not here.She is—she requires your presence and the—and Anders requires your… skills.”

Even in this low light, Carver’s expression is easy enough to track.Puzzlement and worry ebb away as determination settles in and takes hold.“All right.”

“You will come?”

“I hardly think you’d have come here looking for me if it weren’t important.Go.Don’t worry about me—I’ll be on my way.” He furrows his brow, his expression turning pensive.“I just have a couple of favors I need to trade in first.”At Fenris’ look, he goes on to explain, “If I get caught deserting my post, I won’t be very much use to my sister or anyone else.”This man is not the boy he’d once been.

Fenris does not move right away and Carver reads his hesitation perfectly. _“Go,_ ” he says again.“I’ll get there soon as I can.”

There is too much to do and Fenris cannot linger—this much he knows.There is no choice but to place his faith in Carver Hawke.

#

The sky is watery grey by the time Fenris makes it to The Hanged Man; he has never been here at such an hour, but he has never known the door to be locked at this establishment.When he twists the knob, it opens easily and he goes inside.

Not that a locked door would have been much of an impediment.

A young woman is behind the bar, polishing the wood and drying glasses; behind her is a mop standing in a bucket of dingy water.When she sees him, she simply nods and jerks her chin to the stairway.Perhaps she assumes he is returning to his rooms, or that he is here to take a room—in the end it hardly matters, and in a few long strides he ascends the stairway, taking the steps two at a time.

Varric’s door is closed and, Fenris assumes, locked.He raises his fist to the wood and pounds—if there were a time for subtlety, this isn’t it—until the door swings open, revealing within a sleep-mussed dwarf, clad in trousers and little else, his usually sharp, assessing gaze bleary with slumber.

It takes only a moment, though, for Varric’s confusion to clear.He blinks once, twice—he stands up straighter, snapping to almost-alertness. _“Fenris?”_

“You must come with me,” he says.Hawke values the dwarf’s friendship, but Fenris values his perception, his ability to see through ruses and falsehoods.There is little doubt Danarius will employ them as the whim hits.“There is no time.”

Varric ushers Fenris in and begins dressing himself in haste, grabbing a shirt hanging off the back of a chair, his coat hung upon a hook, his boots set neatly by his bed.

“What happened?” asks Varric tersely as he wrestles with his boots.

“Hawke is…”But the words die in his throat.He cannot bring himself to speak them aloud. _Hawke is possessed._ Saying it will make it true, and if it is true then it may be irreversible.“She has been… compromised,” he says instead.

Varric’s head snaps up, all vestiges of sleep gone.“What happened?” he asks again.“She didn’t do anything stupid, did she?”

“No,” he answers brusquely.“This was not of her own doing.”

Varric nods once and stands, looking much more like himself, if a somewhat rumpled version.“I’ve got a feeling I’ll regret asking this, but—has this got anything to do with Danarius?”

His stomach clenches and ices over; all of the blood drains from Fenris’ face and for the first time since Hawke looked at him with a gaze not her own, spoke with words not her own, he is unsteady on his feet.“How did you know?” he asks, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

“She came by yesterday,” Varric explains, shrugging into his coat.“Asked me if I could find out where Danny-boy was resting his head during his time in Kirkwall.She was pretty light on the details—she only said she wanted to look through his things if they were still there, that she’d know what she was looking for when she found it.”

_…we’re going to need to know just what kind of spell he used._

“Did you find the information she was looking for?”

Varric nods, though his expression is grim.“He took a house in Hightown,” he tells Fenris, reciting the address.“It’s nice and close to the chantry, probably for the irony.The place is paid up through next month, though, so the landlord had no idea anything was going on with his tenant.”

Danarius had taken a house for that long? 

_…did you think I hadn’t planned for every eventuality?Did you count on my pride to be so very considerable that I wouldn’t have given any thought to what I would have done had I met my demise?_

Of course he had.Just in case.

Fenris had not, in fact, counted on the magister’s pride to be so considerable.The more he thinks about that, the more he sees how great a fool that assumption had made him—and what it has cost.He had underestimated Danarius; shockingly, Danarius had not underestimated _them._

“Then the house has remained untouched?”

“As far as I know,” Varric replies with a nod, producing a key from deep within his coat pocket.“There’d be no reason for anyone to have gone in.And, like I said, the landlord didn’t know his tenant had been reduced to a smear on The Hanged Man’s floor, so he didn’t mind handing over a key once I assured him it was for a good cause.”Varric narrows his eyes.“What’s this all about?”

Fenris takes the heavy brass key.“Hawke did not… did not tell you, then.”

“She just asked me to find out where Danarius had been staying,” Varric explains, slinging Bianca on his shoulder.“I mean, she was pretty cagey on the details, but told me she was looking for something and she’d know it when she saw it.”

If Hawke had withheld the details from Varric, it had been for Fenris’ benefit.“It is Danarius,” he says, jerking a chin at the door.As Varric follows him out and down the stairs, Fenris explains the situation as efficiently as he can.

“Shit,” breathes Varric. _“Shit.”_

“Carver is on his way to the clinic.”

“I’m going to guess this is where I come in.Don’t trust Blondie and Junior to play nicely with each other?”

“The likelihood of some conflict arising did occur to me. Nor do I think Danarius is above sowing discord.”

“Especially in such a fertile field,” he agrees. Varric turns a shrewd eye on Fenris. “But that isn’t all.”

Fenris pushes the door open.The sky is somewhat lighter, pink in the east, though to the west all is still grey.“No,” he admits.“Whatever words Danarius says, he is saying them in Hawke’s voice, trying—unsuccessfully, as yet—to adopt her mien.I… believe you know her well enough to know the difference.”

“I’d like to think I do, too.”They walked on, Varric’s booted footfalls scraping against the stones, unusually loud at such an hour.“So let me guess,” he said, breaking the silence.“You’re going to be at Danarius’ place, looking for whatever it was Hawke was hoping to find.”

“I think I know what she thought to recover,” he replies.“My hope is that I can find it.”


	9. Nine

The address Varric gave Fenris belongs to a house every bit as large and well-appointed as Hawke’s estate; it is set back from the others, with a small, yet perfectly manicured front garden.Flowering vines with slender, curling stalks creep and crawl up the facade, sprouting blooms the size of apples in shades of yellow, purple, and red.Fenris climbs the front steps and takes one brief look around—all is still—and slides the key into the lock.It turns easily and he releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.He twists the knob and pushes, anticipating resistance where there is none—the door glides silently open on perfectly-oiled hinges.

Fenris hesitates before stepping over the threshold, but only a moment; he doesn’t know what to anticipate—traps, perhaps, or spells unleashing any manner of demon upon an unexpected, unwelcome guest.He steps into the cool, dim foyer, but nothing happens.The house is simply a house, however quiet.

Closing the door behind him, Fenris picks his way through the darkened living space; the furnishings and decor are equally as fine as the house’s exterior, rich enough to suit even a magister’s tastes.Thick rugs silence his footsteps and velvet drapes block all but the thinnest sliver of dawn light.But the rooms are immaculate and show no signs of use—though such an observation sends a flare of worry through Fenris’ breast, he pushes back against the sensation.Danarius likely would have brought his own household staff, and they’d have kept even a temporary home to their master’s standards.

For a moment he wonders what became of those slaves. Perhaps they had fled. It is a pleasanter prospect than the alternative, however unlikely. Whatever spell allowed Danarius to cheat death most certainly came at a cost paid in blood.

The stairway leading to the second floor is wide, the banisters ornately carved; a thick runner carpets the stairs from top to bottom, which he takes two at a time.Fenris does not linger—he does not, at least, until he comes to the first bedroom door.He does not mean to stop, does not mean to hesitate—there isn’t _time_ to hesitate—

These are Danarius’ rooms.

Had he been victorious, this is where he would have returned with Fenris. 

The realization slams into him, coming on too sudden, too sharp, and his hand clenches around the door’s handle.Though the hallway is wide, its ceilings high, the air turns too hot and far too close, as if the walls and are are pressing in on him.Fenris closes his eyes.Takes one breath.Two.Three.There is far too much at stake here to allow mere shadows such control over him. 

This is still where Danarius might yet return, wearing Hawke’s face, should Fenris fail.It is the notion of failure and its attendant consequences that spur him on.Gritting his teeth he twists the knob and pushes—again, too hard—

Fenris loses his breath.

At its foundation, the room’s furnishings are as one might expect, given the rest of the house—a wide bed with a blue silk coverlet and no fewer than a dozen pillows; a lacquered writing desk sits by a far window, pale beams of dawn’s light snaking between the drapes and setting the glossy surface aglow.But the room’s original decor is secondary to what additions Danarius—Fenris now harbors no doubt this is house where the magister had been living—incorporated.

Thick, gleaming chains—two sets of them, rune-stamped shackles at either end—stretch across the bed’s surface.To their right, a collar, likewise thick, likewise enchanted.A small enameled chest sits upon the bedside table; the center of the lid is emblazoned with a dragon, green wings stretching out from end to end.Swallowing against a surge of burning bile, Fenris opens the lid, and with it comes the scent of cedar and—something else.Something familiar and worse, leather, herbs, lyrium, and oil twist and twine together, reaching Fenris’ nose.He clenches his eyes shut as his stomach roils, as his hands freeze.Icy trails of sweat slide down his neck, his temples, his back.The only noise in the room is the rasp of his own shallow, quick breaths.

 _Move,_ he thinks. _You must move!_

It will be worse if he does not move.Everything will be worse.He will lose _everything._ Everything he has worked towards these many years.Everything he holds dear.

Perhaps it is this, the potential of losing that which is dear that quiets the roaring in his ears, for it is something long denied, and now that he has touched and tasted it, he is unwilling to let it slip from his grasp. 

Fenris opens his eyes, forces his breaths to slow.

Potions line the inside of the chest.Vials filled with shimmering liquid he’s sure he wants nothing whatsoever to do with.Affixed to the lid’s interior with leather strips, several sharp blades glow in the low light.With a trembling hand, he closes the chest.

After such an introduction, the other rooms faze him less; even the sight of Danarius’ personal chamber, with its various Imperium-imported accents—bright silk sheets and pillows strewn across the bed, a bowl of honeyed almonds, a decanter of what is almost certainly Aggregio—troubles him only because these things are not what he is looking for.

The room across from Danarius’, however, makes up for all that.

Danarius had never been one for packing light, and this journey appears to have been no exception; once Fenris parts the drapes enough light spills through to show the room is filled with books—some are still crated, but most are stacked and propped upon every available surface.They are old tomes, leatherbound, yellowed pages within.

He lights one of the room’s many lamps. Beyond the books, Fenris finds other potentially useful items—journals kept in Danarius’ hand, letters he had received and some he had been in the middle of writing.

There are so many.There is too much— _too much._ Hawke—she would know what to look for; as she’d told Varric, she’d know it when she found it.His reading skills are improving—too slowly for his liking, but they are improving—but this—this is _overwhelming—_

_Stop._

_Look._

_Focus._

He does.Though his breathing is again too loud and fast in the silence, Fenris stops, he looks around and takes stock of his surroundings, and then he thinks.

Danarius would have had no use for books still packed away.Like as not, he’d had them brought along simply because he could, because he had slaves to bear the weight for him.No, anything important would be out and within easy reach.

Fenris turns his attention to the desk.Correspondence is stacked to the left, but the letters and their spidery writing reveal little more than Imperium politics and financial matters, and so he tosses them aside.The journals look promising, though they are not as quickly parsed as the letters.He moves closer to the window, squinting at the cramped script; it is slow going and Fenris is nothing but acutely aware of every minute—every second—as it ticks by.And yet he’s certain whatever it is Hawke was hoping to uncover will be here.

He only has to find it.

After flipping through several of Danarius’ journals, it soon becomes evident Fenris would be better off bringing them back to the clinic with him.He sets several aside in a stack before facing the truly daunting task—the books.Even excluding tomes still packed away, there are dozens of books in this makeshift study, and Fenris hasn’t the first idea where to start.Many of them have no titles—just sigils embossed into the leather—and when he goes page by page, the unfamiliar typeface slows him down.His frustration spikes—he _can_ read, but not well enough, and certainly not quickly enough to be useful here.With a flick of the wrist he tosses one book onto the pile of journals and picks another up.

“What—what are _you_ doing here?”

Fenris whirls, concentration shattered; the book tumbles from his fingers, landing hard on the floor.

Behind him, Varania— _Varania?_ —stands in the doorway, sleep-mussed, a fireplace poker held threateningly in one hand.His eyes flick from her face to the poker and back again.

“I might ask you the same.”His sister—his _sister,_ the one who’d led Danarius here, who’d led Danarius to him, the one who would have happily sent him back to the very chains he’d escaped once already—is here.In the house Danarius leased.

Danarius, whose heart he crushed.

Danarius, whose spirit even now infects Hawke’s body.

Before she can answer, Fenris closes the distance between them in three long strides.“This house was meant to be empty.”

She does not flinch away from him.If anything, defiance sparks more brightly in her eyes, in the set of her jaw, the tilt of her chin.“Which is why I am here.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, curling his lip.“I suppose your plans will have changed now that Danarius is—”

But he isn’t gone, is he?Not truly, anyway.

“Dead?” she finishes, shortly, nostrils flaring.“Yes, they will change.In the meantime, I still require a roof over my head while I decide what I must do.It seemed safe enough, given there are none alive to complain about it.”

Fenris stares at Varania, his mind racing.Dead.She believes Danarius to be dead, which means she would have had no foreknowledge of this… contingency plan of his.

“ _None_ alive to complain?” he murmurs, placing particular emphasis on the word, watching her, waiting for the slightest twitch—something, anything to indicate her collusion.

But the look she shoots him is clearly read.“As well you know. You were the one who killed him.”

_She doesn’t know._

“You may have yet saved your own life,” he grinds out, turning his back on her to face the sprawl of books once again.“Leave me.”

But Varania does not leave.Instead she comes further into the room, bare feet treading softly upon the floor.“What use could you possibly have for a magister’s grimoires?”She pauses, and the silence is thick with questions—of them, she only gives voice to one:“You are… reading them?”

“It is none of your concern.”

“These are spellbooks,” she says pointedly, as if he could not possibly know such a thing, or comprehend it.She picks one up, flipping through it, frowning at the pages within.He wonders what she sees upon them.What power does she see in those words?“And you are no mage.”

“And _you_ are trying my patience,” he snaps.

But Varania is unbothered by his tone.Brow furrowing, she turns another page, and another.“These volumes would prove more useful to the mage who fought with you.”

“That is the point.”

She looks up at him, tilting her head in thought, eyes narrowed as if she is trying to see beyond his words all he isn’t telling her.“Then why is she not here herself?”

“I have told you—”

“That is it none of my concern, that you are running out of patience.”Her tone is frustratingly unconcerned.“I wonder—did she send you here on such an errand?”

He clenches his fists until his fingers ache, but it does very little to keep his temper in check.Varania will never know how lucky she is Hawke was the one to argue in her favor—Hawke is the reason she is alive at all.“I am here of my own volition—”

She is next to him now, crouching down to pick up the very book he’d dropped.She looks through it slowly, but it is a slowness borne of study, of care.Gradually, with every page she turns, Varania’s expression turns first puzzled, then troubled.

“These are dark magics,” she says, finally, her voice dropping in something that sounds a great deal like disbelief.“Your mage—she is a spirit healer, is she not?”Without waiting for his reply, she goes on.“These are not spells appropriate for anyone with such a level of Fade sensitivity.”

“Why?”The question comes out dry as parchment, little more than a croak.Because Fenris already knows this—oh, how he knows.

Lifting slender shoulders in a shrug, Varania says, “Assuming they even work, these are meant to be spells of possession.”Closing the book, she sets it down.“Though I confess, Kirkwall’s Champion did not strike me as the type of mage to venture into such practices.”

Nodding at the book, Fenris asks, “What… manner of possession?”

Varania doesn’t answer for several seconds; instead she peers more closely at his face, as if trying to see all he has left unspoken.Only after the silence has stretched out too long, until its tendrils tighten and clench around them, does she answer. “I would have to look more closely to be sure.Leto, tell me your mage is not attempting such a spell—for any mage it would end in disaster, but a spirit healer…” she trails off, shaking her head.

“Tell me,” he manages, though the words leave him with nausea clawing at his gut, bile burning a path up his throat.

“She is a spirit healer,” Varania says again, slowly, as if those words explain all.But when she sees no comprehension in his expression, she sighs and goes on. “More so than even other mages, they are sensitive to the Fade, to spirits—I imagine she would be far more invested in keeping them out than letting one in.”

He nods at the discarded tome.“And that book…”

“It is old magic, Leto.Old and—it bears repeating— _dark_.Your mage has no use for it.Tell her these books would be better off burned. That advice is the least I can do to… repay her.”

She wishes to repay Hawke’s mercy.

Fenris looks at his sister’s face.She is so much a stranger to him—aside from the barest whispers of recollection, he does not know her; in fact, he knows nothing about her beyond that she would have betrayed him to Danarius.But the longer he looks, he sees… something.Something in the crease between her brows, in the pull of her mouth, that stirs… something.Not a memory, not quite.But something… _familiar._

Fenris would not risk everything dear to him because of some misplaced sentimentality.She betrayed him once and could do so again.

But. _But._

“These books,” he says, gesturing around them.“How familiar are you with their contents?”

Across Varania’s face, concern shifts to wariness. Suspicion. “How familiar am I with Tevinter magics, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Familiar enough,” she replies, however evasively.“Familiar enough to eventually have become a magister.”

The words strike fire down his spine, even if her tone doesn’t.This is not a condemnation, but simple fact as she sees it.

“And if I told you Danarius would never have followed through on such a promise?”

“Because I am neither Altus nor Laetan?” she counters.“Because a mere Liberati cannot hope to become anything more than that?”

“No,” he replies, the word short and sharp.“Because Danarius knows what people want most to hear; he promises them what they wish most to acquire.And he crafts those promises prettily, so they are irresistible.”

Varania’s reaction is not quite what he expects; her anger does not rise, her words are not spat at his feet.She shakes her head, the gesture very nearly imploring.“It still would have been better than what I’d had.”

A soft bark of bitter laughter escapes Fenris, and he closes his eyes, shaking his head.That— _that_ is a path he knows all too well.“Tell me, sister—did I not think the same?You told me I competed for these markings—and you were correct.But did I not compete for them so that my life— _our lives_ —might be improved?He knows what a slave—even a Liberati—wants, and knows precisely how to dangle it most temptingly _._ ”

Her jaw tightens as she looks away. “Go back to your mage, Leto.Tell her these books are no use to her.Tell her—”But Varania stops, brow contorting in puzzlement.“Wait.…Danarius is dead.And yet you refer to him as if he is not.”

“It is none of your concern.”

She frowns up into his face.“So you have said.”

He lowers his voice to something scarcely more intelligible than a growl.“And yet you do not heed me.” 

Eyes as green as his own narrow sharply.“Why _does_ your mage want these books, Leto?”

Fenris does not know whether these tomes will make sense to Anders.He doesn’t know if the mage has summoned Merrill somehow—and even if he has, there is no guarantee she knows much about Tevinter magics.

Varania, however…

She would have betrayed him.Would have handed him over to Danarius without a second thought.

And yet.

She is his sister.Hawke saw something in her worth saving. 

Now it is Hawke who needs saving. 

“It is not Hawke who needs these books,” he says, finally.“It is I.”


	10. Ten

Fenris explains Hawke’s condition on the way to the clinic, mincing no words and telling her all he knows.Varania does not interrupt save to ask the occasional question, and Fenris isn’t sure whether her silence is reassuring or troubling.He stops at the lantern-lit door, deep in the bowels of Darktown, and turns to look hard at his sister.

“Have you ever heard of such a thing before?”

“There are more magics in the old tomes than anyone can possibly know,” she replies, shifting the satchel upon her shoulder, stuffed to capacity with books and journals. Fenris carries two such bags, similarly burdened.Worry pulls at the corners of her mouth.“I have never heard of a magister succeeding at such a venture, but one hears rumors of those who have tried.It would not surprise me if any had made the attempt, or if there _are_ such spells—accomplishing such a thing would be equivalent to immortality.No one would ever die, only seek out younger, healthier bodies—”

“And spend lifetimes upon lifetimes accumulating power,” Fenris finished.

“Just so.”

His hand is flat on the door; there is no time to waste, but there is one thing left to ask.One thing he must ask—and hope she will answer honestly.“Do you think there is a way to undo this?Danarius had said—”

“No magister will admit his magic can be defeated.”Following his gaze, Varania frowns at the door.“Which is not to say it will be easy, or a matter quickly resolved.There may well be other factors at work; as you said, if Hawke is in the Fade, kept in a trap of Danarius’ making, time is very likely of the essence.”

As Anders had said.

“Then,” he says, pushing at the door, “let us waste no more of it.”

Inside the clinic, much is as Fenris had left it, but for the addition of Carver and Varric—and the rage and tension hanging fog-thick, filling every corner of the vast room.Judging from the smile Danarius wears and the barely-checked fury in the younger Hawke’s face, Fenris imagines things have been going as well as could possibly be expected. 

“Not a moment too soon, Broody,” Varric says, and though his tone is very much its characteristic drawl, strain simmers beneath the surface.He looks up, glancing only briefly at Varania—his expression evinces a glimmer of surprise, quickly tamped—and back at Fenris.“Looks like you got more than you went looking for.”

At this, Danarius’ head swivels to look at him.But he has not been wearing Hawke’s face long enough to know how best to conceal his thoughts, his emotions.And Fenris has had practice reading Hawke’s face; he knows every twitch of her brow, the faintest curve of her lips.

Danarius’ eyes widen at Varania’s presence.That surprise lasts only a second—barely a second—but a second is long enough for Fenris, even after Danarius slams the surprise away, twisting it into gloating pride.

“I see you brought my apprentice,” he says.

Varania freezes at Fenris’ side; if she’d doubted any of what Fenris had told her, this scene spread in front of them is confirmation enough he’d been in earnest. “I am nothing of yours,” she replies coldly.

The resultant smile is an indulgent one. “Of course you aren’t,” Danarius croons before turning a look of malicious glee Fenris’ way. “I’m sure that’s what she told you, anyway.”

Varric’s expression remains carefully blank as he crosses the clinic. “Got time for a little chat?” he asks, jerking his chin back toward the door. “The sibling’s welcome to come along.”

Fenris follows without argument, and once outside of the clinic—and out of earshot—Varric shakes his head. “Well, you called it. Someone’s doing his absolute damnedest to sow dissent.”

Varania stands up straighter, nostrils flaring. “And suspicion.”

“I noticed that, too,” Varric agrees. Then his expression turns shrewd. “But I’ve got to admit some curiosity here: what’s your stake in all this?”

“I have no part in it beyond living in the house when my brother arrived to ransack his former master’s library.”

“Any reason why we shouldn’t be suspicious?”

Varania’s spine straightens and she lifts her chin. “I am well aware that this mage, Hawke, is the reason I am not dead right now. I owe her a debt.”

Varric glances at Fenris. At his nod, Varric shrugs and looks back at Varania, his gesture an invitation to continue.

His sister toys with the strap at her shoulder and shakes her head, the only evidence of any distress. “These are dark, dangerous spells Danarius is playing with. If he takes full control over her body—over her _power_ —I shudder to imagine what havoc he will wreak. He holds decades of power and study; there is nothing he cannot twist, nothing he cannot pervert.” Her own defiance falters as she she swallows hard and shakes her head, struggling with what to say next. “The dead should stay dead. What he has done is wrong… it is unnatural. I am alive today because that mage convinced my brother I was worth his mercy.”She sends Fenris a tentative glance. “I would like to prove myself worthy of that mercy.”

Varric scratches his chin, deep in thought, his eyes boring into Varania— _through_ her. “Sounds pretty valid to me,” he says, finally. “What about you, elf?”

“I would not have brought her otherwise,” Fenris says. He does not think his sister’s relief is his imagination.

There, beneath the clinic’s lantern, they strategize. It’s decided Varania will be the most help upstairs in Hawke’s library with Danarius’ books. Both Carver and Anders will remain on guard duty while Varric fetches Merrill to help Varania in her research.

“And what am I to do?” Fenris asks.

Raking a hand through his hair, Varric sighs. “Stay out of Danarius’ sight for now. He’s trying to mess with your head; I want to make sure he doesn’t succeed.”

#

They’re going in circles.

Literally.Their path curves gently to the right, descending in what feels like a spiral.When the next door appears, it is large and heavy and plain but for a dull metal handle, Amelle tries the handle and is utterly unsurprised to discover it’s locked.

She has had, quite simply, _enough._ She is tired of the Fade, tired of the bloody unending doors, of not knowing the blighted point of any of this. Why give them doors if they’re all locked? Why tease at options? Why…

_Why give the illusion of eventual freedom?_

“Oh, you utter _bastard._ ” Gritting her teeth, Amelle sucks in a breath and flings a fireball at the door, to no effect. She kicks it for good measure.

From behind her, Mely clears her throat. “Shall I give it another try?” She shrugs, producing her lock picks. “Admittedly I haven’t had much luck so far. It’s making me ornery, too.”

“I still cannot believe you count lockpicking among your skills,” Hawke says, taking no pains to disguise her disdain.

“Why not?” Mely crouches down in front of the door. “It’s more fun than knitting, and I’m better at it.” She works for a few moments, and then a few moments longer. Longer than she had on any of the previous doors. Something in the lock makes an audible click and Mely hops to her feet and bows with a flourish. “All right. Let’s find out what’s behind Door Number Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine, shall we?”

She swings the door open to reveal a wasteland of swirling snow and ice. A craggy mountain range is barely visible in the distance, but nothing else. 

Hawke pulls the door closed with a slam, glowering at Mely as if the snow and ice were somehow her fault.

Mely only props a hand on her hip and presses her lips together pensively. “Hmm. Not the way out I was hoping for.”

“Do either of you honestly think any of these will lead us _out_?” Hawke asks. From her tone it’s obvious she doesn’t consider it terribly likely.

Amelle shrugs. “It’s the Fade,” she answers. “One of them might not lead us out, but it could lead us somewhere else that could potentially allow us to find a different way out.”

Hawke snorts derisively. “What kind of logic is that?”

“Fade logic,” Amelle retorts.

“Besides,” Mely interjects. “It’s a _trap_. Right? It’s not meant to be fun. Frankly, I thought we’d established that already, what with the traplike qualities and all.”

Something about Mely’s words make the wool in Amelle’s mind clear for a moment. “Right. It’s a trap,” she echoes. “A trap within the Fade.”

“Isn’t it enough to trap someone _in_ the Fade?” Hawke asks.

“No,” Amelle murmurs. “No, not in this case.” _He’d have no control, then. I’d be wandering around in the Fade, sure, and I’d be out of the way, but… you lay a trap when you want something in a specific place. When you want to keep it there for a specific purpose._

She turns away from the other two wearing her face and glares down the long, curving hall. Amelle doesn’t often curse the fact she lacks a formal education on magic and her power; oftentimes she suspects that allows her to try things other mages wouldn’t ordinarily try, to succeed in ways that run counter to conventional thinking. Unfortunately, it’s put her at a disadvantage here. She knows nothing about spells like this, nothing about magic designed to create a trap in the Fade.

Granted, she also isn’t an evil, tortuous bastard who would construct a Fade trap in the first place. But if she were, and if she had, she certainly wouldn’t have filled it with alternate versions of her quarry.

_What the hell are you playing at, Danarius?_

“Well?” Hawke prompted.

“I don’t know,” Amelle finally admitted. “But I’ll say this: whatever’s going on, I don’t think we’ve reached the meat of it yet.”

“Sounds to me,” Mely said, striding on ahead of them, “like we need to try more doors.”

The next few locked doors open to show varying degrees of nothingness. One reveals a sprawling desert beneath a blinding blue sky, hot, sun-baked sand swirling into tiny vortexes. Another door reveals a mirrored labyrinth identical to the one they started in, and still another opens to impenetrable blackness, stinking of rot and decay, filled with the soft scritchings of what sounds like hundreds of tiny claws scrabbling against stone.

Hawke expresses interest in the desert. Amelle is far too tempted to let her explore it to her heart’s content.

But the next door they reach is different. All the doors had been different from each other, but this one is different in that it is familiar, painfully so. Amelle rests her fingers against the worn wood and holds her breath.

It is the door from their little house in Lothering.

The handle buzzes against her palm as she grasps it and Amelle is surprised not at all when it swings open with no resistance. She stands frozen upon the threshold, unable to do much more than stare at the room beyond, a perfect representation of the past. Amelle remains that way, unmoving, until Mely gives her a gentle nudge.

“It might not be a way out,” she whispers, a half-reminder to herself, “but it could take us somewhere else that is.”

Amelle takes a breath, holds it, and steps over the threshold.


	11. Eleven

The Fade’s representation of the Hawke family home is flawless. It is perfect, all the way down to the handmade, careworn rugs upon the scuffed floor, down to the heavy, solid furniture Papa had made himself—without magic, he liked to remind them at every opportunity, but never more so than when Amelle or Bethany appeared to grow too dependent on magecraft.

Amelle runs reverent fingers over the back of one chair; it feels right, warm and solid and _real_ under her touch. Of course it’s the Fade, of course it isn’t real; the past is past and this house and Papa’s furniture is long gone, lost to the elements, lost to the Blight. But that doesn’t make this image of it less achingly accurate. Today the house is comfortingly cool, windows open and curtains fluttering with an east breeze that smells welcomingly of herbs, some drying from the rafters and some growing in the garden.

It resonates of _home_ and Amelle’s heart twists because the reality of it no longer exists.

“Well, this is a step up from never-ending desert,” Mely murmurs.

Amelle looks back sharply at them both; she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone.

“Can we find a way out through here?” Hawke asks.

“I don’t know yet,” Amelle replies, a trifle testily, though still keeping her voice down. “Would you mind giving me longer than thirty seconds to assess a situation?”

“I thought the Fade was a mage’s domain.”

“As you’ve said. You also thought venturing into the desert would have been a good idea,” snaps Amelle in a hissing whisper. “So for the Maker’s sake, be quiet and let me think.”

Mely snickers from behind her. “She’s got you there.”

Amelle wanders away from her companions, doing her best to take in every detail of her old home without losing herself to memories. This—her father had warned her— _this_ was how the Fade ensnared the unwitting, making the past more appealing than the present, slowly overtaking the victim, like an eclipse swallows the sun.

As she passes the narrow stairway, Amelle catches the hushed sounds of low voices in conversation. She backs up a few steps and slowly climbs the stairs, memory or instinct making her tread lightly on a step known to squeak. Behind her, Hawke’s foot comes down solidly on the offending board and Amelle nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Maker’s _balls_ ,” she hisses. “Be careful.”

“It’s the Fade,” Hawke argues. “They can’t hear us.”

She whispers furiously through clenched teeth. “They can if they’re _demons_.”

Turning away, Amelle hurries quietly up the rest of the stairs, but upon reaching the topmost step, she falters. She isn’t sure if it’s the way the wind rustles through the old yew tree out back or the fresh garden smell permeating the house, but she…somehow she knows this day. She knows this moment.

Most importantly, she knows she does not want to be here. Not here, not this day.

Gripping the railing, Amelle takes a step backwards but her back comes in hard contact with Hawke’s armored chest. She can’t explain, she doesn’t want to explain, she just wants to get _out_ , find the door they came through and return to Danarius’ trap.

“What are you doing?” Hawke demands in a whisper. “Go on.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” Mely reasons. “This is home.”

_This is home._

It isn’t, of course. It’s the Fade. And as long as Amelle remembers that, she… should be fine.

Hating every second that ticks past, Amelle forces one foot in front of the other. She creeps slowly down the narrow hallway, toward the room at the end. The door is ajar and already she smells the sharp astringent scent of healing herbs. It overpowers this part of the little house—and had, she knows, even for days prior to this point, and would still in the days after.

Amelle reaches the doorway to her parents’ bedroom to find the scene awaiting her exactly as she remembers it.

“Carver and Mama will be back soon with the healer,” that Amelle Hawke says, sixteen years old and half of those years a mage.Her face is pinched and pale with worry and mana expenditure, for the elder version of the girl knows too well how frequently she had called on healing spells before that point. Her cheeks are still soft with vanishing childhood, but her hands are steady as she lifts her father’s head and coaxes a potion past his lips.

Bethany sits on the other side of the bed, and Amelle’s heart contracts at the sight of her sister, so young, still a child, diligently cooling the water in a basin before pressing a cold compress to Papa’s head.

This is the day Malcolm Hawke died. This is the day the fever that had ravaged his body finally claimed him.

“What’s that you’re giving him?” Mely asks in a whisper.

“Elfroot potion,” Amelle replies. “It had been controlling the fever until… until that point.”

Lothering’s healer was a long walk from their little farm. She came out a few times to treat their father, but the woman had been an herbalist, not a mage, so what help she could offer was minimal.

“Why are you not curing his sickness?” Hawke asks bluntly.

Amelle bristles. “Because I had been trying to cure him for three solid days and my mana was depleted. I had nothing left.” What she did not share was how very new she was to healing spells at the time. She was far younger, less experienced, and had a fraction of the power than she possessed now.

“What about lyrium potion?” Mely asked. “Surely you had some in the house.”

“My father forbade me from using it. Even though things were… dire.” And for not the first time Amelle wished with all her heart she’d ignored his deathbed order.

Still sitting on the bed, Bethany refreshes the compress, sniffling as she does.“Why can’t you make Papa better, Mely?”

“I don’t know,” her younger self whispers back. “He’s too sick. I can’t… it’s stronger than I am.”

Tears fill Bethany’s eyes and track down her cheeks, dripping into the basin. “You said—”

Malcolm Hawke closes his eyes and the younger Amelle fumbles with the little vial, trying to fit the cork back into it. “I said I’d try.”

“You _promised_ —”

Her chin trembles; tears threaten but do not fall. “I promised I’d _try._ ”

The paper-thin rasp of a whisper drifts from lips dry with fever. “Girls. Don’t fight.”

But once Bethany’s tears started, Amelle knew they would not stop. “But Mely was supposed to make you _better._ She was supposed to—”

Then Malcolm Hawke opens his eyes. He opens his eyes and stares directly at the elder Amelle. She has her father’s eyes, green, like a cat’s eyes.

But never in her life were his eyes as cold and baleful as they are right now.

“She’s right, you know. You were supposed to cure me. You know you could have.”

Amelle’s insides go to ice. This is the Fade. A trick. Not real. She _knows_ and yet— “I tried, Papa. I tried for days—I couldn’t—”

“You knew I kept a chest of lyrium potion under the bed.”

She takes an involuntary step closer to the bedside, tears burning her eyes and a sob tightening her throat. “You made me promise—you made me swear I wouldn’t take it. You made me _swear._ ”

“And you listened to the rantings of a dying, fever-addled mind?” He tilts his head mockingly, cold green eyes so like her own boring into her, through her. “If you loved me, sweetling, why didn’t you defy me?”

But Amelle has no answer for this. “I wish I had, Papa.” The tears blinding her finally fell. “Every single day, I wish I had.”

Her father’s smile is terrible—mocking and mirthless, the dried cracks in his lips splitting and going red with blood. “Only because now you know what a mess you made of everything.”

#

Fenris has decided he would prefer to be of assistance in whatever capacity he can—away from Danarius.

Varania is seated at Hawke’s desk, stacks of books and journals surrounding her.Merrill has chosen a spot on the rug in front of the fire to study Danarius’ tomes. And though Fenris feels useless here—he reads too slowly and lacks the necessary understanding of magic—he does not wish to witness Danarius’ spirit in Hawke’s body any longer than he must.

Varania glances at Fenris occasionally as he prowls the library, picking up the books that had been flung from their shelves and returning them to their rightful spots, setting order to the chaos. The broken mask and the sad remains of scorched books have been removed; he doesn’t know who did it and doesn’t care. The library still shows signs of the earlier altercation, but with every book he slides home, Hawke’s sanctuary returns a little closer to normal.

“Was it your mage who taught you to read?” his sister asks quietly.

“Hawke taught me, yes.”

Silence follows as Varania pushes one thick grimoire aside and pulls a leather bound journal in close. For several minutes there is only the soft rustle of pages turning. Then, “Do you enjoy it?”

His first inclination is to snap at his sister for asking such foolish, pointless questionswhen the task ahead of them is so daunting. Instead, and with a brief glance at Merrill, who is very obviously pretending not to listen, he sighs and crouches down to scoop up an armful of displaced books.“I do. I found it maddening at first, but I have come to find it enjoyable.

“I am glad of it.”

Then, from her spot in front of the fire, Merrill makes a soft, surprised sound. She’s risen to her feet even before Fenris can ask what she’s found, and hurries over to the desk, setting an ancient book wrapped in embossed black leather in front of Varania. “That looks promising. Well. Maybe not _promising_ , but…”

Varania pulls the book closer and examines the next few pages. Her brows pull together in a frown and the longer she reads, the deeper that frown becomes.

“Creators,” Merrill murmurs, half to herself. “I see the resemblance now.”

Fenris says nothing in the interim; he merely waits, unwilling to hope. But his heart has already started beating faster, harder beneath his breast.

“Brother,” she says, after an interminable silence. “When did Danarius take control of Hawke’s body?”

“Before dawn,” he replies instantly. “Perhaps two hours before, maybe less.”

“You cannot tell me the hour, then?”

He glowers at her. “Hawke and I were otherwise occupied at the time.”

Merrill looks at one of the library windows; it is full morning now. “So perhaps…four hours ago?”

“That is as good a guess as any,” he replies tersely, thinking quickly of the time it took to bring Hawke to the clinic, to locate Carver, to rouse Varric, to search Danarius’ quarters. Four hours. Perhaps longer, though not much.

Varania nods and turns back to the book. “I believe we’ve found…” she gnaws her lip. “Part of the whole. A piece of the spell he used.If that is the case, we have only a single day to reverse the process.”

“A day?” Fenris echoes, his mouth going dry. A _day._ A single day is not enough time to undo whatever has been done. They have wasted so much time already.

“One day, up until the hour the spirit took possession of the host—and don’t glare at me so, Leto, I am only telling you what the spell says. The effects are permanent after that.”

“He wished to leave for Minrathous right away.”

“Yes,” Varania said darkly, glancing briefly at the yellowed pages before looking up to meet his gaze. “I imagine he did.”

Fenris isn’t sure what Varania sees when she looks at him, but there is a ripple of… of _something_ in her expression, and, for only the slimmest moment, she appears to be on the verge of speaking.

Then something changes and she subsides, eyes dropping back to the text.

“I will leave you to it, then,” he says quietly, though he cannot quite shake the vague disappointment at the shift in his sister’s demeanor.

She hesitates before nodding again. “Yes. Thank you. There is much to do—“

“And little enough time to do it,” Fenris finishes for her.

#

Amelle doesn’t know how it happens, but in less time than it takes to blink, the house in Lothering is gone, her father is gone, the entire scene is gone and they are standing once again in a black stone corridor lined with doors.

“What—” Hawke begins, but Amelle flings up a hand, halting whatever words are poised upon her lips.

“Don’t.” She walks away from them both; Amelle isn’t sure whether she’s heading back the way they already came or not, and she cannot find the wherewithal to care.

It is the Fade. She knows it is only the Fade and the Fade can lie. Demons can lie.

_But I did not let my father die. That much I know. That much I am sure of._

Amelle thinks back, desperately trying to pull up the memory how it had truly happened—what her father’s final words to her had actually been.

_“…now you know what a mess you made of everything.”_

No. No, he hadn’t said that. He hadn’t said that at all.

But what _had_ he said to her? Amelle’s left hand crawls to her head, fingers twisting in her hair. What had Papa’s last words been?

_—now you know—_

No.

_—what a mess you’ve made—_

No. _No_ , that isn’t right. It can’t be right.

_—of everything._

Only those words, that tone, dry lips cracking in a cruel smile remain. They fill her memory and the harder she casts back, the harder it becomes to recall anything else. She cannot remember her father’s face ever watching her with pride or love. Amelle cannot recall anything but those words and that cold, sneering grin. She knows it is a lie, but cannot remember the truth.

She only remembers how she failed her father in the end.

From behind her, Mely calls out her name. Amelle’s hand falls heavily to her side and she looks over her shoulder. Mely and Hawke are further down the corridor, waiting for her.

“We should probably check some more doors,” Mely says, jerking a thumb in the opposite direction. “So we can get out of here.” Hawke remains mercifully silent.

“Right,” she says absently. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”

_Now you know what a mess you’ve made of everything._


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm off to an agility trial tomorrow, and still have a lot to do. So I'm posting earlier than usual so I don't forget!

Fenris leaves the library, heading through the basement wine cellar to Anders’ clinic, below.Their window of time, small to begin with, has been steadily shrinking and they none of them are remotely closer to determining how to pull Hawke back from the Fade and cast Danarius out of her physical body. He stops amid the dusty racks of dark bottles—time is slipping past, and he is now acutely aware of every hour, every _minute_ they lose. They cannot fail.

 _He_ cannot fail.

He reminds himself that Danarius does not know what they have learned. And Danarius will underestimate them; of that Fenris has no doubt. It is a flaw the magister cannot conquer. Paranoia prompted him to craft this contingency plan—paranoia planted and tended in the Imperium’s very fertile soil.

They must make use of that flaw. Exploit it.

He takes a breath and releases it before heading down the little ladder that opens to Darktown and Anders’ clinic. The atmosphere remains tense; Danarius is still bound to a chair while Carver stands guard. Anders works at a table not far off, mixing a batch of what Fenris is certain, given both the potion’s color and the odor permeating the clinic, is magebane. And Varric sits upon a crate, keeping a watchful eye over all.

“Tell me you’ve got good news, elf,” he says in a low tone as Fenris approaches.

Fenris speaks in a low tone, keeping one eye on Danarius. “If we do not pull Hawke from the Fade before tomorrow morning, the effects of the spell will be permanent.”

“That’s not good news.” Varric’s levity is strained and Fenris wonders what has transpired since he left for the library.

He gets very little time to wonder.

Danarius tilts her head, regarding Hawke’s brother a long, thoughtful while. “Carver, isn’t it?Carver Hawke.” 

Carver takes no pains to conceal his anger at the sound of his sister’s voice speaking in Danarius’ inflections. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Danarius smiles Hawke’s smile until it reveals her dimple. “Come now, we’re practically family.”

“You and I,” he snarls, coming too close to drawing his sword, “are are _practically_ nothing, magister.”

“Oh, come now. Don’t be that way,” she coos. And, after slanting a quick look Fenris’ way, she says, “Why, _brother_ , why don’t you tell me about our father? Malcolm, wasn’t it?” Danarius shifts in the bonds. “Since I’m obviously not going anywhere in the immediate future, perhaps we can chat.”A terrible pause. “Reminisce.”

“Reminisce,” the younger Hawke grits out, taking a dangerous step closer. _“Reminisce._ What in the bloody hell could you and I possibly have to reminisce about?”

“Junior,” Varric warns. “Don’t kick the hornets’ nest.”

Danarius smirks now and tips her head back, staring up at the ceiling.“Malcolm Hawke, devoted husband to Leandra and doting father to three darling little rugrats.” She looks around at her audience. “Surely you all know this part. Right? The firstborn who would cast a shadow you, Carver, always felt trapped in. Amelle Hawke. Then the twins, of course. You and your charming sister, Bethany—also a mage, like your elder sister. But I digress. Your father died when you and your twin were thirteen, did he not? And your elder sister sixteen. He died while you were accompanying your mother to fetch the healer. Tell me, did you ever forgive him that? I doubt I would have. Shall I share with you his final words to your sisters? Or do you already know that one? It’s quite touching.”

The silence that followed was complete. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. They all simply stared in horror at Danarius, who was rather obviously enjoying the reaction.

Anders was the first to speak.“We need to get Hawke out of the Fade.”

Carver shook his head. “That part’s obvious. What kind of trick is he—”

“It is no trick,” Fenris cuts in, though the words are wrenched from him. “What have you done?” he demands, striding toward Danarius, not sure what he will do, for everything he wishes to do involves inflicting pain on Danarius. Lifetimes of pain.

“I have already told you,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Her memories are transferring themselves to me. She has no use for them… where she is.”

“And why are they doing that?” Varric asks darkly, crossing his arms.

“Because I created her prison so they would.” Danarius shrugs, though the movement is limited in her bindings. “A disguise requires some verisimilitude to begin with. And it isn’t as if Hawke would have told me herself.”

Fenris goes suddenly, horribly cold.He had thought it a ruse at first, baseless bragging. But no, Danarius is… stealing Hawke’s memories. Beyond the sheer _violation_ of it, siphoning off intimate thoughts and treasured recollections so the disguise may be complete, Danarius would—he _will_ , Fenris has no doubt of it—if left unchecked, he will leave Hawke’s mind barren.

Not unlike the damage he’d done to Fenris’ memory, so many years ago.

The light builds around Carver’s clenched fists and it’s Anders, unsurprisingly, who figures out first what the younger Hawke is about to unleash. “If you’re going to release a Holy Smite,” he says quickly, “please at least wait until I leave the room. Which,” he adds, looking pointedly at Danarius, “I don’t mind doing.”

The light flares off and dies as Carver turns away in frustration. A stab of sympathy twists beneath Fenris’ breast for the younger Hawke.

Varric scratches his chin thoughtfully. “That’s probably not a bad idea, Blondie. Maybe head upstairs and see if Daisy and Red need assistance? Like you said, we need to get Hawke out of… wherever she is. Three heads are better than two, right?”

But before Anders can reply, Danarius… laughs.

“You’re in earnest, aren’t you? You truly believe you can just waltz into the Fade and pluck her out like a child lost in the wood. Hawke is _gone_ , or soon will be. She is caught in a trap tended by demons for the forging of a demon, in which she will either be devoured or made anew.” Her smile is smug. Familiar, though it is wholly out of place curved on Hawke’s lips. “Truthfully, I myself look forward to discovering which occurs.”

Varric snorts. “You think you’re going to turn _Hawke_ into… a demon.”

“Oh, _I’m_ not doing it. If it is to occur, it will be her own doing.”

A deeply dubious silence fills the room.

“I’m… not sure you know Hawke as well as you think you do,” Anders says.

“I know she is weak,” Danarius spits. “I know you and the rest of your compatriots create the illusion of strength for her. But alone? Alone, she is nothing. And that will be her undoing. I have only put her upon the path she deserves.Where I have left her, she will be taken apart, piece by piece, broken so slowly, so gradually, she will not see her end until it is upon her. Whether that end comes at the demons’ jaws or in her own transformation, it is still too early to say.But she will, in the end, destroy herself. She hasn’t the fortitude to do otherwise.”

“You do not know her,” Fenris says, and though his tone is soft, he curls his hands into fists as his brands simmer and glow with barely checked fury.

“Perhaps in life I didn’t,” Danarius tosses back. “For weeks after my demise, I watched her, studied her, from both sides of the Veil. And as I watched, I learned.”

That catches Anders’ attention. “You watched from beyond the Veil? That isn’t… it shouldn’t be possible.”

“According to what?” Danarius laughs. “Your Chant of Light? Perhaps it’s impossible if you adhere to plodding dogmatic thought. Luckily I am not so restrained. Yes, I observed her—I saw the line by which she is connected to a healing spirit. A thing of compassion,” she sneers. “As if compassion makes a fighter, makes a _champion._ I have not the first idea how or why anyone graced her with such a mantle, but I can tell you she is not worthy of it.A shame, too. None of you know the ability she holds within, the talent, the raw _power._ Hawke is a waste of a mage, a mockery of all that should make mages revered, honored, _worshipped_.”

There is much Fenris wants to say now. Words swirl like a tempest through his head, but he keeps his mouth resolutely shut. He wonders—worries, in fact—for a fraction of a moment whether this silence is residual behavior left from his years as a slave, but after some reflection, he decides it is not. If he gives voice to any of the thoughts or opinions he’s holding to so tightly, there is the slightest chance Danarius will see the miscalculation she’s made.

Hawke, he knows, makes no pretense of being _strong._ She never has. She has always simply acted—or reacted—in whatever manner she felt to be true, right, or just. She has made difficult decisions, knowing she had to live with the consequences. Not a few of those decisions drew the ire of her companions at one time or another—Fenris included. But she’s never buckled, never gone back on her word. She has shown mercy and compassion when rage and violence would have been far easier to wield; Fenris knows just how easy rage is to come by, how effortlessly violence comes to him.

Fenris suspects Danarius has no idea what kind of fortitude that requires.

Still, the truth remains Hawke is held in the Fade and Danarius is taking her memories—he is stealing experiences and mistakes and lessons, all of which have contributed to the person she is now. Who would she be without those experiences?Fenris does not wish to find out. They must act, and they must do so quickly.

When he turns his attention back to the tableau before him, he sees quite clearly that Danarius has started to pay particular attention on Anders. Fenris is only too familiar with that particularly calculating expression, and he cannot help but wonder—and worry—about what other memories of Hawke’s Danarius has accessed.

“You. Anders. You _understand_ —far better than Hawke. I know you believe in the natural superiority of mages.And _you’re right._ I can trace my line back to the Dreamers, boy.To a time when none would question us, when none would even dare, would even think to shackle us.And now—look at yourself. Surviving on scraps, healing those who would be better served ground beneath your heel. You call the spirit within you Justice, but you yourself do no justice to the thing inside you.You could—”

“And on that note,” Varric interrupts, “let’s you and me see how we can be useful upstairs, Blondie.” He starts for the door, Anders trailing behind, but stops long enough to address Carver, whose expression is a veritable thundercloud. “Feel free to smite our guest into next week, Junior.” A pause. “I _hate_ it when a villain monologues.”

The light builds around Carver Hawke’s hands and this time nobody stops him.

#

“Explain it to me again,” Hawke says.

Amelle looks at Mely for support, but she simply shrugs and says, “Hey, you’re the mage around here.”

Trying not to sigh, she attempts another explanation. “Okay. Let’s first assume there’s a way out and it’s possible we can find it without any outside help.”

A clank of armor as Hawke folds her arms. “Why should we assume such a thing?”

“Because,” Amelle replies, her patience whittling to nearly nothing. “It’s the Fade. There’s _always a way out of the bloody Fade.”_ She is trying not to shout, and the attempt is not one she’s meeting with very much success. “Even in a trap—why wouldn’t a mage give himself a secret way out, in the event he got trapped in his own trap?”

“So you aren’t certain.”

“No I’m not bloody certain,” she retorts. “But if our choices are either to look for a way out, or sit around and stare at each other until we die here, I’d rather look for a way out.”

Hawke sniffs, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “And you suspect such a route could be in one of these rooms,” Hawke replies, flatly.

Of course Amelle’s hypothesis is nothing so simplistic, but Hawke has a gift for trying her patience. “I suspect—or, at least, I _hope_ —that such a route could be found _through_ one of these rooms.”

“Provided,” Mely chimes in cheerfully, in an obvious effort to defuse the tension between Hawke and Amelle, “the next one doesn’t boot us out like we’ve got something communicable.”

“Yes,” Amelle agrees, her spirit somewhat dampened by the reminder. “Provided that.”

The doors they have passed in the interim have yielded mixed results. Some have resisted Mely’s lockpicks and some have not—those that open under duress reveal impossible locales: roaring ocean storms and snow-capped mountain ranges in the middle of nowhere. They have yet to encounter another that opens freely.

Until, that is, they come to a door of smoked glass with intricate designs etched along the perimeter. The handle is constructed of metal wrought to resemble the most delicate lace. There is no lock, and the handle does not twist—Amelle simply pushes on the door and it glides open, admitting them all.

The scenery is unremarkable: a craggy, rocky path littered here and there with sad, scrubby little bushes. The sky overhead is sharp, blue, and cloudless. The sun is blazing so brilliantly, it appears white in its heat.

Amelle hesitates. She and her family escaped Lothering along this route.She glances back and Hawke and Mely, but neither of them seem to recognize the spot. Something about that bothers her, but she can’t put her finger on the reason why.

None of them speak a word to each other as they follow the rocky path. It’s littered with bones, picked clean and bleached white; bones that could be darkspawn remains, or the remains of the darkspawn’s victims—it’s impossible to tell. The only thing Amelle is confident of is that they have been here for years, long enough that a skull is partially buried. She prods at the skull with one boot and it falls free, revealing itself as decidedly not human.

The path ahead opens to a clearing overlooking a lush, green valley. Unlike the dry, dusty heat here, the valley is thick with tall pine trees and green grass. A sparkling stream winds its way through the trees, gradually disappearing from view. It is, Amelle knows all the way down to her bones, the last glimpse of Ferelden she ever saw. A dark-haired woman sits upon a rock, and though her back is to them, Amelle knows her.

She could never forget her sister.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Bethany asks.

“It is,” Amelle concedes, around the knot in her throat.

“I died here,” she says.

The words come out too low, too husky to be her normal tone. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Did you know,” Bethany says, still looking at the valley, “I was left out in the open to rot, for carrion birds and scavengers to pick at?”

Amelle blinks away the sudden saltwater sting. “I know. I know, Bethy, but there was no time—”

“Don’t talk to me about _time_ , sister,” Bethany says. Her voice is colder than it ever was in life. Hollow but for hatred. “I have had nothing but _time_.”

And then she turns.

Her sister’s face is a nightmare. Her skin is grey, dry and flaking away, stretched too sharply over cheekbones, torn in spots as if animals had fed on her flesh, revealing bone beneath. Her lips are shriveled away, revealing a death’s grimace. One eye—the beautiful brown eyes their mother had cried over—is gone, the remaining one clouded over with white. Bethany sits because one leg is gone. Her skeletal hands are absent fingers.

“I waited,” she says. “I waited and I waited to cross the Veil, sister. I was supposed to walk by the Maker’s side with Papa. I waited and I waited and _I waited_ , but all that came were darkspawn and scavengers and they picked and plucked and tore at me.”

“Bethany…” Amelle breathes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t give me that,” Bethany spits. “Don’t tell me how sorry you are when you don’t mean it.” The shade of Bethany tilts her head, but the angle is too much, too wrong, and Amelle remembers her sister’s neck had been broken.

“How can you say that? How can you—”

“You let me die.” Each word, spoken so coldly, so unlike Bethany—in life Bethany had been warm, affectionate, and kind.

“ _No!_ Bethy, I—I tried, I saw what was happening, I—“

“You tried?” the shade says, bitterly. “You _tried?_ ”

The air around them spits and flickers suddenly, images coalescing from dust until a sepia-toned memory unfolds around them. Bethany, young and whole and alive, charging the ogre, a fireball licking to life around her fingers, only to be snatched up like a doll, her body slammed into the earth over and over and over, then tossed carelessly aside.

Amelle knows the scene by heart.

“You were dead by the time I reached you,” she says, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “I couldn’t—there was nothing I could heal. You were gone. It was… it was beyond my power.”

“Power you just so happen to have _now._ ”

Amelle stills. Her mouth has gone dry.“It isn’t that simple.”

“Isn’t it?”

“There is no guarantee I could have saved you, even if I had the skills I have now.”

“If you have the power now, you had the potential then. Maybe your little Fade spirit might’ve made its appearance sooner if you’d _wanted_ it a little more.”

Amelle’s defense lies heavy on her tongue; she wants so badly to say so much. Her mouth works silently for a moment, but she shakes her head mournfully.

This is the Fade, and the Fade can lie.

“Because you were too slow, because you could not be bothered to make the effort _,_ I have rotted in this spot these ten years. What happened is your fault, sister.”

And even though the Fade can lie, Bethany’s words echo so many of the dark little thoughts that sprouted and stretched through Amelle’s mind, curling through it in the dead of night like so many weeds. _Had_ she tried her hardest to save Bethany’s life? _Had_ she done all she could?

In the light of day, the answer is an unequivocal _yes._ But doubt blooms in darkness.

“Your death was a heartbreak from which I don’t believe Mother ever recovered,” Amelle finally says, her throat tight with tears she refuses to shed. “One she blamed on me, I’ll have you know. So if you’re trying to make me feel badly about it—” And, oh, Amelle does not want to be angry, not now, not with Bethany, not _now_ , but she cannot stem the bitterness creeping into her voice. “If that’s what you’re trying to do, you’re rather late to the party. I’ve been shouldering that guilt and regret for nearly a decade. And still— _still_ —I replay that day in my mind, trying to find a way I could have prevented it, how I could have saved you.”

“And you still cannot, after all this time?”

“I can’t, no.”

The thing that is Bethany looks away and when she speaks again her voice is cold. Empty. “You are pathetic.”

There is nothing for her here.

Amelle turns, surprised that Hawke and Mely are still behind her, watching silently, their expressions inscrutable. “I rather imagine,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady, “we’d better get on with the search.”

Amelle is scarcely half a dozen steps away from Bethany when the shade speaks again. “Papa was right.”

Amelle’s steps slow, then stop. “Was he?”

“You only carry your guilt and your regrets because you know how deeply you’ve made a mess of things. How many lives have you ruined, sister? How many people are miserable because of the choices you’ve made? How many look at you and wish you’d never darkened their doorstep?”

The words slice like a blade through her sternum, stealing her breath. It’s several seconds before Amelle can breathe deeply enough to speak.

“Well,” she whispers in a voice thick with unshed tears. “Perhaps you are alone here, Bethany, but at least you aren’t alone in that.”

“Go, sister. And pray you don’t destroy any more lives.”

The sun above grows brighter and brighter, until it fills Amelle’s vision, blinding her. When it fades again, she and her two companions have been returned to the stone corridor. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes; her head is splitting.

“So,” Mely says, entirely too brightly, “no secret exit through there.”

Hawke crosses her arms. “I am beginning to suspect you might be wrong, mage.”

The comment, the demeanor, is more than Amelle can tolerate at that moment. She drops her hands to her sides, clenching them, but that doesn’t quell the unchecked magic snapping and sparking at her fingers. “Well, lucky for you, Hawke, you’re not alone in that estimation. That said, I would find it immensely helpful if from here on out you’d simply keep your blighted, bloody opinions to yourself.”

Mely steps forward, a hand outstretched, but Amelle backs away. “Please, don’t. Just… go on ahead without me. My head is killing me. I… want to be alone for a while.”

Mely exchanges a worried glance with Hawke. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“I don’t care if it’s wise,” Amelle replies dully. “I want to be alone.”

Nobody says anything for nearly a full minute, but eventually Mely edges away, tugging gently on Hawke’s armor. But they do leave and Amelle waits until she can’t hear the clank of Hawke’s armor before she slides to the floor, her back against the cold stone wall, burying her face in her hands.

Of all the things Amelle ever wanted the opportunity to tell Bethany, she managed to say exactly none of them. The throbbing in her chest seems to deepen and broaden; it is a physical ache, but holds within it the pain of heartbreak and disappointment, grief and regret. She cries quietly, pulling her knees closer to her body, making herself as small as her armor allows.

What had Bethany said that was a lie, anyway? Where had she been wrong?

_Everything in the world I’ve touched, I’ve turned to ash. Papa was right, Bethy was right._

The stone wall grows colder, chasing a chill down her arms, her legs. Amelle shivers in her armor.

_What has magic touched that it hasn’t spoiled?_

“Oh, Fenris,” she breathes, pressing the heels of her hands against her pounding head. “I can’t tell whether it’s a blessing or a curse you aren’t here.”

And what would he say to her, if he were? If he were witness to two of her greatest failures?

She doesn’t want to consider it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey! Lots of stuff happened since I posted the last chapter: an agility trial (my dogs were brilliant!), Thanksgiving, and positively baffling levels of job-related ridiculousness. Everything got away from me, which is why I'm posting on a Sunday night instead of a Thursday. Work promises to be insane this week, too, so that'll be fun.
> 
> ALSO: this chapter heavily references an earlier one-shot fic of mine, "Actions Louder Than Words." You don't need to go read it (unless you want to), but if at any point the conversation makes you think, "Huh. I don't remember that conversation in the game," there is an excellent reason for that: It's not in the game.
> 
> ALSO ALSO: A huge, huge thank-you to Swaps for giving this a look and asking me some... very hard questions. <3

“All right,” Varric announces as they enter Hawke’s library. “I don’t know what that bastard’s done to Hawke, but I don’t like any part of it.”

Sat at Hawke’s desk, Varania lifts her gaze from the ancient book she’s reading. “Has there been a change?”

Anders stands before the fire in the hearth, arms crossed. “He’s taking on Hawke’s memories, which… he implied would happen from the start.”

Varric waves a hand. “And we all thought he was bluffing. With any luck, Hawke’s brother holy-smited—“

“It’s smote,” Anders corrects absently.

“Whatever,” Varric tosses back. “Writer’s prerogative. With any luck, Hawke’s brother _smote_ Danarius into next sodding week.”

Merrill and Varania exchange a troubled look, and though it passes briefly, it is not so brief that Varric misses it.

“Something tells me I’m going to like whatever’s making you two look like that even less.”

Merrill stands, clutching the ancient tome to her chest. “Well. It’s possible we’ve found the spell. If… if we’ve found the right one, it’s… a process,” she explains. “The… the trap he set for Hawke, there are phases to it.”

“We found a small handful of spells that… could have been what Danarius used,” Varania explains. “That he’s gaining her memories is…” she flounders a moment, searching for the right words. “It’s… in its way, it is a good sign because only one that behaves in such a way.”

“If you have the correct spell,” Fenris says, “then let us end it.”

His sister meets his eyes. “It isn’t going to be that easy, Leto.”

“It never is,” Anders intones, staring at the ceiling.

“All true, but as luck would have it,” Varric says, striding to Merrill’s side, “we happen to specialize in Not Easy. It’s kind of a niche market. Now,” he says, patting her on the back, “what do you mean by phases?”

“If we’re right, then Hawke had to progress through Danarius’ trap in order to begin losing her memories,” Merrill answers. Something about the explanation catches Anders’ interest and he pulls his gaze away from the ceiling to settle on Merrill.

“May I?” he asks, putting one hand out. Merrill hands him the book and he lowers himself to Hawke’s divan with it. 

“Progress… through it?” Fenris asks. “Do you mean to say that simply… trying to find her way out of such a construct…”

“Sends her more fully into it,” Varania finishes for him. “Yes.” She pulls one of the other books closer and opens it. “The problem with crafting and letting loose such a complex spell, beyond the… moral implications—“

Varric snorts. “Morality, not too terribly high on Danny’s list of priorities, from what I hear.”

Varania coughs. “Just so. However, this particular spell is…” she frowns at the page. “It is unpredictable. The magic is—if these notes are to be believed, and I have no reason to think otherwise—very nearly uncontrollable.” She looks up from the book and casts a glance around, meeting each of their eyes. “The darker the magic, the more erratic it is.”

Fenris does not think he imagines Merrill’s discomfiture. Her eyes are downcast as she traces the pattern on the rug with one toe.

“It makes sense,” Anders says slowly, looking up from the book. “If this was supposed to play out only in the event of his death, I doubt he was willing to risk it failing just because the magic was unstable.” 

“Yes. I believe that’s precisely it.” Varania pushes one tome away and searches the sprawl for another, soon pulling it free from under a sheaf of letters. Flipping through pages she murmurs, “He writes about the difficulties at length… _here_.”

Fenris folds his arms and glares down at the pile of books, papers, and letters. “He knew a dead man could not spring such a trap without…”

“Precautions,” Varania finishes for him. “He speaks of… something.The language he uses changes throughout. Sometimes he refers to it as an _anchor_ , sometimes it is a _tether,_ though he consistently speaks as if it is a physical object. I believe it is this precaution, this object, we’re looking for. Whatever it may be, it seems to be the reason Hawke _could be_ pulled from her body, and it is the reason, or at least one of the reasons, she cannot reclaim it.”

Anders tilts his head thoughtfully. “Are you saying that… without it, there would have been a greater chance of Hawke retaking her body and sending him back through the Veil?”

“Yes,” replies Varania. “That… appears to be the case.”

Fenris takes this in, turning it over in his mind. “If it is a physical object,” he says, walking to the hearth and back again, “perhaps it is somewhere in his house.”

Varania pushes her chair back and looks up at him. “That occurred to me. Somewhere he could have kept it safe.” But then she taps one finger against the cover of the journal she’s been reading. “It’s a good place to start, but Danarius is…”

“Evil?” Varric suggests. “Sinister? Villainous? Malevolent? You want words, I got ‘em.”

“Calculating,” Fenris interjects. “He is the rest as well, but…”

“My brother is correct: Danarius is shrewd. I do not believe any magister can be otherwise—“

“And live,” Fenris interjects darkly.

“Just so.”

“Got it. Bloodthirsty politics, not just an idiom in the Imperium,” Varric says. “You tell us all you know about _what_ you know, and we’ll figure something out from there.”

#

Amelle opens her eyes to see Hawke standing over her and Mely crouched close. Hawke’s expression is thinly veiled impatience, while Mely’s is decidedly more understanding. One might even call it concerned.

“How’s the head?” Mely asks. “Feeling any better?”

Amelle touches her fingers to one temple. The headache has subsided, but hasn’t vanished yet, which is… decidedly odd, for her. Amelle doesn’t _get_ headaches. Or colds. Or any of the other various and sundry ailments that plague most people. Save for particularly violent seasickness that raises its ugly head should she so much as look at a boat, Amelle… does not get sick. She takes a breath and focuses a stream of healing magic upward, but the mana use only barely eases her headache.

She shrugs and pushes to her feet. “I’ll be fine.”

Mely nods, then hesitates a little. “About Bethany—“

Amelle holds upon hand, forestalling whatever question Mely wants to ask. “Please, no. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Mely exchanges a look with Hawke, whose expression remains impassive. “You might feel bett—“

“I very seriously doubt it.”Amelle closes her eyes and presses cool fingertips to her eyelids.“Have you found anything?”

“We made a little progress,” Mely says, as they start to follow the corridor again.

“Very little,” Hawke mutters, but Mely waves her off.

“Broke some lockpicks. Not a big deal. One of the doors opened over the mouth of a volcano. That was rather more of a big deal. Hawke tried pushing me in.”

That’s enough to shift the other woman’s sour demeanor. “I most certainly did _not._ ”

“Well,” Mely sniffs. “I’m almost sure she considered it.”

“And I’m sure I wouldn’t have been the first.”

Mely runs ahead a few steps before vaulting herself forward into a handstand. “If that’s not an admission, I’m not sure what is,” she sings out, walking on her hands.

“This is the last one we attempted,” Hawke tells her, ignoring Mely as she indicates a blue paneled door. “It broke one of Mely’s tools.”

Springing her weight back from her hands, Mely rights herself with a little hop and a flourish. “Can you see where I kicked it?”

Amelle looks at the spot the rogue is indicating, but the blue finish is perfectly unmarred. When she reaches out to brush her fingers over the supposedly damaged wood, the door swings suddenly, silently open.

Nobody speaks for several seconds.The silence is already too heavy when Mely breaks it.

“What in the blighted blue void did you _do_?”

“I… touched it,” Amelle murmurs, looking first at her fingertips and then through the doorway. “I only touched it.” But Mely is already grasping her wrist and towing her through the open door.

“Well, let’s go before it closes on us!”

But Amelle is only a few steps over the threshold when she realizes she recognizes this place—she _knows_ it, she knows what she’s opened up, and she pulls hard, twisting her hand out and away from Mely’s firm, determined grip. “No. _No._ ”

The rogue just looks back at her, her expression one of amused bemusement; she plants a hand on her hip and shakes her head. “It’s just the foundry. There’s nothing to be afraid of in here. It’s just deadly-dull… foundry stuff. Metal. Casts. Whatever.”

Amelle stares at them both. “How can you—“

The realization hits her like a mace to the head. _This is not their memory. None of them have been. Why?Why haven’t we—_

“How can we… what?” Mely makes another grab for Amelle’s hand, but Amelle takes several steps backward, evading her.

“Not this one. I won’t go.” She knows this place—knows it too well. It has featured frequently enough in her nightmares, and she will not revisit it now. “ _No_.”

From behind Amelle, Hawke nudges her shoulder. “You aren’t making sense. Few enough doors have opened for us. Did you not say yourself we might find our way out through one of these other rooms?”

“I did say that. I did, but—I can’t. I _won’t_. Not this one.” It’s the foundry, and Maker’s blood, she knows—she _knows_ what she will find here. She backs away from the other two versions of herself and dashes for the doorway.

She is so, _so_ close to the blue paneled door when it slams shut—so close the breeze ruffles her hair.

There is no option left but to go forward.

#

“I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that spell is one nasty piece of work,” Varric says, walking the length of the library before stopping before the hearth and staring into the embers.

“These are incredibly dark magics,” Merrill replies. “Darker than I’ve ever… well.”

Fenris is too distracted with all his sister has told them to remark on what Merrill has said. “It would appear Danarius was in earnest.”

Varric is still standing in front of the fire, hands linked behind his back, his gaze lost in the dancing flames.After a moment he shakes his head. “I don’t know, elf. The most convincing lies have some truth to them. Danarius isn’t going to give you the whole playbook. But he’ll sure as shit let you peek at the pages that show him winning.”

Needing some occupation other than research, Varania endeavors to bring the mess currently strewn across Hawke’s desk to some kind of order. “Before we go any further, I must learn more about Danarius’ ‘tether.’ If that is what’s keeping her out of her body, then she cannot re-inhabit it until we’ve removed whatever it is he’s used—”

Fenris shakes his head. “We have lost too much time already.”

“There is too much we do not know, Leto!” she cries, shaking her head so sharply a lock of hair falls free from the twist she wears. “Even the slightest misstep—“

“Then send _me_ to the Fade.”

Fenris does not miss the way Varric jerks and turns to stare at him. Pointedly. But Fenris steadily meets his sister’s gaze. “If Hawke—if Hawke falls to the demons in this… trap, the rest will not matter,” he tells her. “Let me do what I can to aid her there. Find out all you can about this tether, whatever it may be, in the meantime.”

Varania is already shaking her head even before Fenris finishes. “I cannot guarantee you’ll arrive anywhere near her, brother. It is a maze—“

He cuts her off with a slicing motion, his tone as sharp as the movement itself. “Send me to the Fade if you wish to make yourself useful at all.”

His sister is about to argue with him. Fenris isn’t sure how he can be so certain; perhaps it is the way the color rushes to her cheeks and the tips of her ears, how she flares her nostrils, or the way a muscle in her jaw flexes as she clenches her teeth. A memory, deeply buried, struggles to awaken, to break free—but Fenris cannot grasp it.

And yet, somehow he knows this is not their first argument.

Before Varania can give voice to whatever misgivings she has, Merrill steps in, placing a hand on her forearm and offering a brief shake of her head. After several heartbeats of time, Varania subsides.

Merrill clasps her hands in front of her. “We’ll need some time to prepare.”

#

Amelle Hawke has relived this night countless times. It is a nightmare from which she still wakes on occasion, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets and crying out for her mother.

As with the little house in Lothering, the details are perfect: the foundry reeks of abandonment and blood, of dust and herbs, of death and dark magic. She also catches the faintest scent of lilies. It rained that night, a storm that rattled windows with its thunder and lit the skies with endless arcs of lightning. The rain hasn’t started yet, and the thunder is only the most distant rumble.

The scene before her is… awful, but flawlessly recaptured.

Amelle stands apart, watching the battle, watching magic and bolts and blades clash until finally, that utter bastard, Quentin, falls. Quentin, who’d taken her mother’s life _because he wanted her face._ Quentin, who deserved a far longer, more agonizing death than the one he got.

Quentin, whose final breath doused the horrible, foul magic coming off her mother in waves.

She watches herself rush— _too late, too late, you’re too late_ —to her mother’s side, dropping to her knees. Healing magic stutters at her hands; she is torn between the need to heal and the knowledge that there is too much broken to fix. Quentin’s magic is too dark, too corrupted, too foul to repair. The damage is too deep, too extensive.

And even if Amelle had been able to heal it, could she have forced her mother to live that way? A patchwork monster of other women’s parts? Such a thing would have been a cruelty beyond calculation.

The other Amelle bows her head close to her mother. Standing so far away, she cannot make out their words, but that hardly matters. Amelle knows every line by heart.

What she _can_ hear, however, are the words her compatriots speak to each other as they stand witness to her grief.

Her failure.

Varric, arms crossed, shaking his head. “It’s not like Kirkwall’s ever been _safe._ Still, not gonna stop Hawke when she decides to leave her mother alone while she spends a sodding _week_ righting wrongs at the Wounded Coast.”

Isabela, turning away and pulling a flask from her belt. Her expression drips disdain as she takes a long drink. “That’s what she gets for being so bloody preoccupied with fixing everyone else’s problems.”

Varric chuckles, busying himself with adjusting some of Bianca’s mechanisms. “You accusing Hawke of having a hero complex, Rivaini?”

The pirate sends a conspiratorial smile Varric’s way. “No, but I think _you_ are.”

“Well, come on,” Varric chortles. “It practically writes itself.”

From behind Amelle, another voice, one she knows as well as her own: “It is no less than she deserves.”

Amelle spins wildly to see Fenris, leaning against a heavy wooden crate, arms crossed over his chest. Blood drips from gauntleted fingers, hitting the stones at his feet like tiny crimson raindrops. “Fenris,” she breathes, her heart leaping with hope as she takes a step toward him.

But he doesn’t see her, doesn’t acknowledge her.

 _Of course he doesn’t,_ she reminds herself, trying to shake off the sharp pang of disappointment. _This is the Fade. It isn’t real. It isn’t_ real.

Oh, but it feels so very real.

“What makes you say that, elf?” Varric asks, still fussing over Bianca.

“It is what she is,” Fenris replies coldly _,_ flicking the blood from his fingertips. It spatters an arc on the wooden crate, dark red against white pine. “Hawke ought to be faced with the reality of magic. Better she face it now than continue living in denial.”

Amelle’s breath catches—this is Fenris, to be sure, but Fenris has never spoken so coldly to her.

_But are you so sure he’s never spoken about you this way?_

She shakes her head, pushing away the slithering ribbon of traitorous thought. _This is not Fenris. This is the Fade. And the Fade lies._

Then Fenris turns his head—he _does_ see her. He stares directly at her, pinning her eyes with his own icy glare as he pushes away from the crate and stalks toward her. “You know it is true.”

Amelle takes a halting step backward, then several more. _This is a shade. A figment. Perhaps even a demon. Whatever it is, it is not—this is not Fenris._

And then the scene tilts and shifts—now they are in her bedroom; the fire is blazing high and hot in the hearth as the storm pounds against the roof. Rain pelts the windows. Thunder rattles the glass in its panes. Amelle is on the bed— _she_ is. This is not a scene is forced to watch; here, Amelle is stuck in her role, forced to _act_.

Fenris stands before her, the fire behind him casting his features into shadow. “Who’s to say you won’t go mad someday, Hawke? For all you claim that you try to do the right thing time and again, you too may falter.” He steps closer, and sneers. “You too could _slip_.”

Amelle opens her mouth to reply, but cannot. Something is wrong. Something is deeply, terribly wrong. This isn’t how that night went. This isn’t how—

_The Fade lies._

Fenris had come to Amelle in her grief this night, yes. But these were not the words he’d spoken.

_It has been said… death is but a journey._

Amelle curls her hands into fists until her nails press into her palms. “This isn’t right,” she mumbles. “This isn’t real. It isn’t _real_.”

“The Knight-Captain has said as much, has he not?” Fenris says, ignoring her. “Mages may be able to resist temptation, but can they resist it forever? Can you?”

She knows the words, but it wasn’t Fenris who spoke them.

_To be honest, I don’t think there is much point in filling these moments with empty talk._

Amelle pushes to her feet, shoving the imposter away. Threads of magic flicker around her fingers. “This isn’t what you said! This is wrong— _you’re_ wrong!”

But the shade will not be pushed away so easily. He crowds forward, forcing her back until her calves bump the edge of her mattress. “Then by all means, Hawke,” he says, sneering, “enlighten me as to what my own words were.”

_Maybe they’re right. Maybe we ought to be locked up like wild dogs._

“You never said that.”

_I did. I’m the one who said it. I said it and meant it._

Fenris had come to her that night.

_Death is but a—_

That much she’s sure of. He came to her and said… he said…

_—but a journey…_

But the memories are slippery and she cannot take hold of them. Amelle sits, slouching forward, resting her elbows upon her knees and cradling her head in her hands. “This isn’t right,” she grinds out through clenched teeth.

He is upon her now, fingers scything into her shoulders as he shakes her once, hard. Amelle’s head snaps back and Fenris catches her chin cruelly in sharp, gauntleted fingers, forcing her to look at him. When he speaks, his voice is scarcely more than a growl, his teeth bared—an expression befitting a wolf. “Have I not told you time and again that magic spoils everything?”

There is a challenge in her reply. “You have.”

Amelle’s defiance is a fire that licks beneath her breast—it lives because she knows beyond a shadow of doubt that there’s so much more Fenris has said to her. So much more beyond _that._ They have shared hours of conversation over bottles of wine, over dwindling campfires, in the small hours of the morning, tangled in bedsheets.

There is so much more between them now, so much more than _Magic spoils everything_.

“You know it is true,” he snarls. “Now, more than ever, you know.”

“This is a lie. _You_ are a lie.”

“Then prove it.”

She breathes in, calling upon memory, opening her mouth to speak—but Amelle cannot reach the memory. Worse, she cannot recall—the words he’d said that night.

Yes, Fenris had come to her chamber—he’d come to see her in her grief, and she—

She had been so very _angry_. That, Amelle remembers. Anger, hot as the fire in the hearth, bright as the lightning twisting across the sky.

Turning away from the shade, Amelle wraps her arms around herself. She is cold despite the fire in the hearth, despite her armor. She convulses with a shiver, the chill sinking deep in her blood and bones. “Fenris never said any of that,” she says, finally. “ _I did_.”

The shade’s smile is void of anything resembling affection. “And you meant every word, didn’t you, Hawke?”

_Of course I did._

“What else did you say that night, Hawke? Tell me.”

“I said—I said you were right.”

Triumph lights in this false Fenris’ eyes. “What else?”

Amelle turns away. She cannot remember what Fenris said, but her words come back to her so terribly easily.“That you’ve… that you’ve always been right.”

“Go on, Hawke. Say it. How was I right?”

The words feel like they’re being pulled from her, one by one, painfully. “Magic… spoils everything.”

Everything goes blindingly white again, and when the light dims Amelle finds herself once again in the corridor of doors with Mely and Hawke.

“Well,” Mely says quietly. “I can see now why you didn’t want to go through _that_ door.”

She’s so cold.Amelle wraps her arms around herself and turns away from them. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, dully.

But something is bothering her. It’s prodding at her like a stone in her boot.

She remembers a different night she called on Fenris in the mansion. They shared wine and conversation, and Fenris told her something… something important, something that bore no resemblance to what she just experienced.

_If…_

Almost there—she almost has it—

_If there is a future to be had—_

Yes. She closes her eyes and struggles to remember _that_ night, those words he spoke, the wine on her tongue and the warmth in her belly as he said them—and it wasn’t the wine; it was him, all him—but the harder she tries, the more slippery her recollection becomes.

_If there is a future to be had, I will—_

When she tries to recall the scent of the fire in the hearth, the touch of his hand, the taste of wine-tinted kisses, she finds she can only reach scornful green eyes and distance—so very much _distance._

_—I will walk—_

“I will say this: Fenris was in _rare_ form,” Mely observed, her words unraveling Amelle’s concentration. “Maker’s balls, but he can be tetchy.”

Amelle clenches her fingers into fists. Maker, she’s so _cold._

_—I will walk—gladly—_

“I’m sure he has never spoken to me in such a way,” Hawke sniffs.

Her eyes sting with tears. This is the Fade. The Fade lies. Fenris didn’t say that—he _didn’t._ She knows that. But Amelle cannot remember what he said—

Why can’t she remember what he said?

_If there is a future—_

_If there is—_

_If—_

She clenches her teeth to stop them from chattering.

_What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?_

Yes.

Yes, Fenris _had_ said that. He’d said it and meant it.

Maker, she’s so cold.


End file.
